1859年臭名昭著的卡林顿事件长期以来被视为首次极端空间天气事件，但自19世纪40年代末以来，就不断有关于地磁风暴期间电报设备受到轻微扰动的报告。2013年，学者发现《自然》杂志于1871年刊登过一份匿名报告，描述1841年10月英格兰南部海岸埃克塞特发生的一次“非常强烈的磁扰动”如何扰乱铁路运行。如果记载属实，这将是此类事件最早的记录。然而，《空间天气》杂志发表的一篇论文指出，1841年这一日期很可能是笔误，真正的铁路中断发生在几年之后。
The infamous Carrington Event of 1859 has long been considered the first extreme space weather event, but there have been reports of minor disturbances to telegraph equipment during geomagnetic storms since the late 1840s. In 2013, scholars discovered an anonymous report published in 1871 in Nature describing how a "very intense magnetic disturbance" disrupted rail travel in Exeter on the southern coast of England in October 1841. If accurate, this would be the earliest such account. However, according to a paper published in the journal Space Weather, that 1841 date is most likely a typo, with the real railway disruption occurring several years later.
“空间天气常被当作现代挑战来讨论，因为我们依赖卫星、通信系统和电网等技术，”兰卡斯特大学共同作者吉姆·怀尔德说。“这项研究表明，自电力技术出现以来，社会几乎一直在经历空间天气对技术的影响。埃克塞特列车延误是一个引人入胜的故事，因为它恰好发生在新兴技术首次开始面对空间环境现实之际。”卡林顿事件仍是科学记录中最强大的地磁风暴，全球各地出现强烈极光，造成电火花，甚至引发几起电报站火灾。
"Space weather is often discussed as a modern challenge because of our dependence on technologies such as satellites, communications systems and electricity networks," said co-author Jim Wild of Lancaster University. "What this study shows is that society has been experiencing the effects of space weather on technology for almost as long as electrical technologies have existed. The Exeter train delay is a fascinating story because it sits right at the point where emerging technologies first began to encounter the realities of the space environment." The Carrington Event remains the most powerful geomagnetic storm in the scientific record, with strong auroral displays occurring all over the world, causing sparking and even a few fires in telegraph stations.
有些极光明亮到人们声称可以借着光线阅读报纸。电报当时是一项相对较新的技术，最早出现在19世纪30年代，而由太阳上很可能发生的日冕物质抛射引发的地磁感应电流使电报系统瘫痪。一些报务员发现，即使切断电源，他们仍能依靠强大的极光电流发送和接收信息。
Some of the auroras were so bright that people reported being able to read the newspaper by their light. The telegraph was a relatively new technology at the time, having first emerged in the 1830s, and the geomagnetically induced current—from a likely coronal mass injection from the Sun—knocked out telegraph systems. Some operators found they were still able to transmit and receive messages even after disconnecting the power supply, relying just on the powerful auroral current.