This is the severity level UCS Manager assigns to a fault while it's still within its soaking interval, before being promoted to its final severity. This lets an admin see a lower, provisional severity for a condition that's still being confirmed, rather than either seeing nothing at all or immediately seeing the full critical severity for something that might resolve on its own within the soak window. A soaking severity of info means a just-detected condition shows up as informational-only during its soak period, only escalating to its real severity, such as major, if it's still present once the soak interval elapses.