Validation of the coronal mass ejection predictions at the Earth orbit estimated by ENLIL heliosphere cone model

Modeling is an important tool in understanding physical processes in the space weather. Model performance studies evaluate the quality of model operation by comparing its output to a measurable parameter of interest. In this paper we studied the performance of the combination of the halo coronal mass ejection (CME) analytical cone model and ENLIL three-dimensional MHD heliosphere model. We examined the CME arrival time and magnitude of impact at 1 AU for different geoeffective events, including the October 2003 Halloween Storm and the 14 December 2006 storm CMEs. The results of the simulation are compared with the ACE satellite observations. The comparison of the simulation results with the observations demonstrates that ENLIL cone model performs better compared to reference mean velocity and empirical models.