Ground increase of cosmic ray intensity on February 16, 1984

The event of February 16, 1984 is one of the two largest ground increases of solar cosmic rays (CR) in the last two cycles of solar activity. This event happended at a decrease of the 21-st cycle against a quiet background. Although at the beginning of 1984 the observed indices of solar activity were higher than those at the end of 1983, the day of February 16 16 may be characterized as very quiet. On that day the geomagnetic perturbance (Sigma F sub p = 14, A sub p = 7) was the lowest in February. After a small Forbush decrease due to the magnetic storm of February 12-13, the CR intensity almost completely recovered by February 16. Thus, the solar particles that came to the Earth on February 16 got into a practically unperturbed magnetosphere, and the variations of secondary CR induced by these particles were not superimposed on any other substantial variations of extraterrestrial or magnetospheric origin