Northern lights dazzle Toronto and southern Ontario

Torontonians may be used to bright lights, but Thursday night was brighter and prettier than usual.

Due to a geomagnetic storm, the northern lights were visible around Toronto and parts of southern Ontario late Thursday evening into Friday morning.

In Toronto, CBC's Nicole Mortillaro photographed the lights dancing above The Beaches in the city's east end Thursday night.The Balmy Beach Club is visible in the distance.

Even above the downtown lightsand the CN Tower, the red hue of the Aurora shonethrough.

Over near the Scarborough Bluffs, CBC'sRozennNicolle got a shot of a bright green sky above the waters of Bluffers Park Marina.

And further north, thoughnot as far as one might expect, CBC Toronto's Lane Harrison caught an even more dazzling light show in Bracebridge, Ont., Thursday.

The town is about 150 kilometres north of Toronto, and the rural sky made for an even more brilliant canvas.

The northern lights, or aurora borealis, arecaused by solar particles that are flung from the sun toward the Earth by an explosion of energy on the sun's surface called a coronal mass ejection.

This year they've been surprisingly active in southwestern Ontario, with solar activity also making them highly visible in parts of the region back in May.