Impacts of Significant Space Weather Events

• 24 MARCH 1940. A “great” geomagnetic storm rendered inoperative 80% of all long-distance telephone connections out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Electric service was temporarily disrupted in portions of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, as well as Quebec and Ontario, Canada.

• 9–10 FEBRUARY 1958. A geomagnetic storm caused severe interruptions on Western Union’s North Atlantic telegraph cables and made voice communications very difficult on the Bell System transatlantic cable from Newfoundland, Canada, to Scotland. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, experienced a temporary blackout.

• 4 AUGUST 1972. A severe geomagnetic storm caused a 30-min. shutdown of the Bell system coaxial cable link between Plano, Illinois, and Cascade, Iowa. A power transformer failed at the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority.

• 26 NOVEMBER 1982. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-4 visible and infrared spin-scan radiometer, which maps cloud cover, failed 45 min. after the arrival of high-energy protons from a major solar flare. The untimely failure occurred as a series of intense storms hit the California coast.

• 13–14 MARCH 1989. A severe geomagnetic storm caused a systemwide power failure in Quebec, Canada, resulting in the loss of over 20,000 megawatts. The blackout cut electric power to several million people. Time from onset of problems to system collapse was about 90 s. High frequencies were virtually unusable worldwide, while very-high-frequency transmissions traveled unusually long distances and created interference problems. A Japanese communications satellite lost half of its dual-redundant command circuitry. A NASA satellite dropped 3 miles (4.8 km) in its orbit due to the increase in atmospheric drag.

• 29 APRIL 1991. A transformer at the Maine Yankee Nuclear Plant catastrophically failed within a few hours of a severe geomagnetic storm onset.

• 20–21 JANUARY 1994. Two Canadian communications satellites failed, interrupting telephone, television, and radio service for several hours. The failures occurred after an extended period of high electron levels in the satellite environment.

—from the National Space Weather Program Implementation Plan, Second Ed.,
Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology, July 2000

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