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Abstract. IZMIRAN was founded about 65 years ago with one of the goals of carrying out geomagnetic prognoses. More or less, this activity has been developed during its entire history, but about 6 years ago this aim became sufficiently feasible due to the organization of the Forecasting Center of helio-geo-physical conditions. This Center appeared in response to new technologies, numerous new data available and new social demand. The Center uses the extended experimental basis of IZMIRAN and all available Internet sources. Its main tasks consist of continuous monitoring of the processes at the Sun and in the near-Earth environment, development of different kinds of prognoses and delivering them to users. The main product is a short-term (1-6 days) prognosis of geomagnetic activity (mainly daily A pindex and maximum K p -index), a long-term (from weeks to years) prognosis and detailed forecasting on the special fixed dates. Among its consumers it is worth mentioning the Russian Space Agency, the Russian Ministry of Civil Defense, Emergencies and Disaster Relief, railway departments, a number of medical institutions, and mass media. In this work we discuss some activities of the Center, along with presenting several examples of the real influence of geomagnetic disturbances on different sides of human activity. Our six years of experience show a growing interest in prognoses of this type and this tendency seems to be retained.

In 2003, geomagnetic activity was found to be considerably higher than in any other year of the current solar cycle. This was caused by the time coincidence of large low-latitude coronal holes and a significant burst of the flare and eruptive activity of the Sun. The features of recent intensification of the activity are discussed, and the long-period behavior of indices of the geomagnetic activity in the 23rd and previous cycles is compared. The large magnetic storms in October-November 2003 are analyzed in more detail.

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