Halloween Storm of 2003

    Left: This spooky looking aurora was seen near Nome, Alaska in October of 2003, just days before Halloween. Credit: Spaceweather.com
  Right: The 2003 Halloween solar storms were so powerful that auroras were seen as far south as Texas and Florida. This aurora image was taken near Houston Texas. Credit: Spaceweather.com
 
Called the "Halloween Storms of 2003," these energetic storms began, surprisingly, a full two to three years after solar maximum, when solar activity was on the decline. During this usually "quiet" time, when few sunspots are visible, an outbreak of 17 major flares erupted on the sun.

Space weather from these enormous solar storms slammed into Earth’s magnetic field from October 19 through November 7. “The effects of these storms were ghoulish enough that [aircraft controllers] had to re-route aircraft, it affected satellite systems and communications, and it also caused a power outage in Sweden for about an hour,” said Dr. Holly Gilbert, a solar scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
 
During the height of the solar activity, more than half of the deep space and near-Earth space science missions experienced the effects of the Halloween storms of 2003. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), failed temporarily. NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite experienced damage, and instruments aboard many spacecraft had to be shut down temporarily.

Another effect of these storms was an increase in the colorful dancing lights seen at Earth’s north and south poles, called aurora. “The aurora are normally limited to the higher latitudes, and these storms were so powerful they created aurora that could be seen as far south as Florida,” said Gilbert.



http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/halloween_storms.html