We analyze vertical total electron content (vTEC) variations from the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) at different latitudes in different continents of the world during the geomagnetic storms of June 2015, August 2018, and November 2021. The resulting ionospheric perturbations at the low and mid-latitudes are investigated in terms of the prompt penetration electric field (PPEF), the equatorial electrojet (EEJ), and the magnetic H component from INTERMAGNET stations near the equator. East and Southeast Asia, Russia, and Oceania exhibited positive vTEC disturbances, while South American stations showed negative vTEC disturbances during all the storms. We also analyzed the vTEC from the Swarm satellites and found similar results to the retrieved vTEC data during the June 2015 and August 2018 storms. Moreover, we observed that ionospheric plasma tended to increase rapidly during the local afternoon in the main phase of the storms and has the opposite behavior at nighttime. The equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) crest expansion to higher latitudes is driven by PPEF during daytime at the main and recovery phases of the storms. The magnetic H component exhibits longitudinal behavior along with the EEJ enhancement near the magnetic equator.

The ionospheric storm time responses during August 2018 are investigated over South American region using multiple observables, for example, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) derived vertical total electron content (VTEC) from International GNSS Service, magnetic field data, geomagnetic indices, global ionospheric maps, thermospheric mass density (TMD), and [O/N ₂ ] ratio measurement. Strong-ionospheric and upper-atmospheric disturbances affected the ionospheric variables with long duration during the storm recovery phase and following after. First, daytime VTEC (9:00–20:00 UT) presented variations of >15 TECU during days 25 to 30 of August 2018 in low and middle latitudes of South America, this after sudden storm commencement (SSC). Furthermore, nighttime (21:00–24:00 and 00:00–05:00 UT) VTEC presented low values (5<TECU8 TECU) in the recovery phase. Second, the ionospheric values during the storm main phase and following after, at low- and mid-latitudes, caused the equatorial ionization anomaly to expand due to prompt penetration electric field. Furthermore, VTEC enhancements are likely to occur few hours after the SSC of 25 August 2018, while enhancements of TMD and [O/N ₂ ] ratio started to appear later on 26 and 27 of August 2018.