By David F. Rooney
Last week’s giant solar flare had some very real physical effects here in Revelstoke, putting off publication of The Current’s Monday morning print edition.
“We had an electrical storm that fried the motherboards on our printers,” Revelstoke Printing’s owner, Craig McKee, told me this morning.
He said he has ordered new parts that, ideally, will be installed Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning.
Last Thursday an X5-class solar flare from sunspot AR-1429 blasted the planet on March 8 at 3 am local time. Since then there have been two other large flares that have pummelled Earth’s magnetosphere. At the time, the SpaceWeather.com website predicted a strong-to-severe geomagnetic storm. The ongoing flares are affecting some electronics and electrical equipment.