On Sept. 1 and 2, 1859, telegraph systems around the world failed catastrophically. The operators of the telegraphs reported receiving electrical shocks, telegraph paper catching fire, and being able to operate equipment with batteries disconnected.
. Ice core samples have shown evidence that large-scale geomagnetic storms with similar intensities as the Miyake and Carrington events occur at an average rate of once every 500 years.to measure the strength of these solar eruptions. The"G scale" has a rating from 1 to 5 with G1 being minor and G5 being extreme. The Carrington Event would have been rated G5.It gets even scarier when you compare the Carrington Event with the Miyake Event.
One hundred amperes is equivalent to the electrical service provided to many households. Currents this size can cause internal damage in the components, leading to large scale power outages.A geomagnetic storm three times smaller than the Carrington Event occurred in Quebec, Canada, in March 1989. The stormDuring the storm, the high magnetically induced currents damaged a transformer in New Jersey and tripped the grid's circuit breakers.