Aurora Borealis could be in view in Toronto tonight. Here’s how a solar storm is making that possible

The northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, are expected to illuminate the sky in Canada tonight, including in Toronto, thanks to a rare and severe solar storm.

The northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, is expected to illuminate the sky in Canada tonight, including in Toronto, thanks to a rare and severe solar storm.

“Even Toronto is actually inside the predicted viewing area for aurora for tonight,” York University Astronomy Professor Elaina Hyde said early Friday evening.

A burst of material exploded off the sun on Thursday, triggering a severe geomagnetic storm that hasn’t taken place to this degree in almost 20 years.

“What happens is, if you can imagine a stream of charged particles flying towards the Earth. It hits earth’s magnetic field and the magnetic field funnels those particles towards the north and south poles and they interact with the atmosphere, which is when you see the northern lights,” Hyde explained.

Usually, she said the lights are only in view near the poles, but in this case, more particles are hitting Earth’s magnetic field and the activity is spreading to places that typically don’t see the notorious lightshow.

This particular storm is so severe that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NCAA) declared it a G4, the second highest level given to solar storms, which hasn’t taken place since 2005.

The current solar cycle has only had three severe geomagnetic storms, with one in 2003 resulting in power outages in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa.