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Description
Although the Carrington Event of 1859 is typically cited as the first extreme space weather event of the scientific era, it is not the earliest example of modern human technology being impacted by geomagnetic activity. The literature includes reliable accounts of disturbances to telegraph equipment during geomagnetic storms dating to the late 1840s, but the rediscovery by Cade III (Space Weather, 2013) of a report published in the journal Nature (1871) suggests that the first recorded space weather impact may have occurred in 1841. The Nature article reports interference in the telegraph system of the South Devon Railway Company on 18 October 1841 due to a “very intense magnetic disturbance” which caused the departure of the 10:05pm express train from Exeter to Newton Abbot to be delayed by 16 minutes. However, our research reveals that the railway line from Exeter to Newton Abbot was not opened until 1846, so the timing of the events reported in Nature (some 30 years after the event) cannot be correct. In this study, we present the results of an investigation into contemporary records and geomagnetic observations that suggest the misreported 1841 event occurred several years later, on 18 October 1848. It therefore still represents one of the earliest recorded examples of space weather impacting technical infrastructure.
