Chris Cook – Forks Forum photo

While the Northern Lights didn’t light up the West End on Thursday night, the solar flare cast by the sun on Thursday did allow for some Fantasia like effects in Forks.

The solar flare lightly affected ferrous metal items, as seen in this metal-handed brooms doing a leaning tower of Pisa act inside Leppell’s Flowers & Gifts. A metal badminton racket also easily stood on its handle. And no, there were no wires attached, or invisible Twilight vampires holding the three items up.

The good news was the fun playing with metal objects. The bad news is the solar flare phenom of Thursday was just a taste of what a strong solar flare could do to our civilized world. Like knock out electronics including power grids and telecommunication networks. NASA says more solar flares are coming, possibly within days or months. 

NASA captured a photo of the solar flare (the one that affected the West End yesterday) coming out of an erupting sun at 7 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, March 6. Its rays started hitting the several hours before midnight, local time on Wednesday evening, NASA forecasted.