The historic facts of the Aurora
This list is not complete. I have picked a few events to highlight. At the end is a link to a complete list of solar storm events.
The first written record of a sunspot sighting dates to 28 B.C (by Chinese astronomers).
Telescopic observations of the Sun's surface began around 1610. It was at this time that the sunspots could be systematically observed and were, by Galileo, Fabricius, Scheiner and Harriot.
The Maunder Minimum, also known as the "prolonged sunspot minimum", was a period around 1645 to 1715 during which sunspots became exceedingly rare.
Sept 1770 Kyoto, reported in writings
1-2 september 1859 The Carrington Event
On 1 and 2 September 1859, one of the largest geomagnetic storms (as recorded by ground-based magnetometers) occurred. Estimates of the storm strength (Dst) range from −0.80 to −1.75 μT. That is in MicroTesla!!!! Bare in mind that the Dst-value is normally expressed in NanoTesla. On this date the auroras were seen all the way down to Columbia. That is near the equator and many more sightings were reported from over the whole planet. Telegraph lines between Portland, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts were powered by the energy of the solar wind (Geomagnetically Induced Current). Telegraph pylons threw sparks. A very comprehensive article on the Carrington Event.
04-08-1972 Sea mines exploding in Vietnam
This CME remains until today the fastest ever recorded with a traverse time Sun-Earth of only 14,6 hours where 2-3 days is normal.
Article on the August 1972 storm
13-03-1989 Power plant down in Canada
This was a series of CMEs amongst which a very big X15 flare. A Canadian powerplant went down as the energy of the Solar wind flipt magnetic circuit breaker, the powerlines conducted the energy as Quebeq is on a rockformation. It also caused transformers in New Jersey to burn out. This storms auroras were seen in Texas and Florida.
Article on the march 1989 storm.
30-10-2003 KP9 -> Mediterranean region (Netherlands in the Zenith) (X45 flare)
This insane X45 flare (saturating the satellites sensor at X28 and later remodeled) caused the 2003 Halloween storm on 28-29 october. Twelve transformers in South Africa were disabled and had to be replaced, despite the country's low geomagnetic latitude.
Article on the october 2003 Halloween storm.
23 july 2012 missed us at 9 days.
This was a very dangerous event.
Cited from Wikipedia: Had the CME hit the Earth, it is likely that it would have inflicted serious damage to electronic systems on a global scale. The resulting geomagnetic storm may have had a strength of −1,150 to −600 nT, comparable to the impact of the Carrington Event. A 2013 study estimated that the economic cost to the United States would have been between US$600 billion and $2.6 trillion. Ying D. Liu, professor at China's State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, estimated that the recovery time from such a disaster would have been about four to ten years.
Article on the july 2012 Halloween storm.
17 march 2015 KP8 of 9 -> Slovenia
Largest geomagnetic storm of solar cycle 24, driven by IMF (Interplanetary Magnetic Field) variations.
I had all my bags packed as I was leaving for my 4th aurora trip early next morning. At that moment I was living in the most light polluted region of our planet so it was, even in hindsight, all but plausible that I would have shot anything of any value. To the naked ey there was definitely nothing.The following week delivered lots of Auroras.
February 2022
A mild solar particle and geomagnetic storm of otherwise little consequence led to the premature reentry and destruction of 40 SpaceX Starlink satellites launched February 3, 2022 due to increased atmospheric drag.
The Starlink Incident. Includes video of multiple re-entering and fully burning Starlink Satellites.
10-11 may 2024 NL in Zenith Netherlands. (X5 flare)
Though the X5 flare was strong but not extreme this was in effect one of the stronger few solar storms
Article on the may 2024 storm
Aftermath
Cited from Wikipedia:
On August 16, 1989, another storm caused a halt of all trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange when three redundant disc drives all failed.
Since 1996, geomagnetic storms and solar flares have been monitored from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite, a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). Extreme geomagnetic storms were registered in 2003 and 2024, both sparking northern lights as far south as Florida.
Because of serious concerns that utilities have failed to set protection standards and are unprepared for a severe solar storm such as the Carrington Event, in 2013, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ordered the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to create standards that would require power grids to be somewhat protected from solar storms and equipment to be continuously tested for possible effects of solar storms. After a technical conference and public comment, the final rule utilities must use for testing equipment and directing future research was published in September, 2016.
The 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to examine the sufficiency of cooling systems of stored spent fuel rods of nuclear power plants now considered vulnerable to long-term power outages, which could also be caused by space weather, high-altitude nuclear burst electromagnetic pulses (EMPs), or cyber attacks.