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aurora borealis

If you don't want to miss what could be a "spectacular display" of the northern lights over Canada, keep your eyes on the skies over the next two nights!

Thanks to a massive solar flare that erupted from the sun earlier this week, a dazzling display of the aurora borealis could be lighting up the sky tonight (Thursday) and Friday night. Even better, it's expected to be visible across Quebec.

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If you missed the stunning northern lights display last week, don't worry! Canada might get another chance to see the sky light up tonight thanks to another powerful solar flare over the weekend.

The Weather Network (TWN) reports that people across the country should keep their eyes on the sky from Monday evening through early Tuesday morning as the auroras could make another dazzling appearance overnight from September 16 to 17.

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Do you have an air conditioner? Access to a swimming pool? Enough ice to fill your bathtub? However you go about it, you're going to want to find ways to cool down this week. Environment And Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has issued a special weather statement for the Montreal area, warning that an extended heat wave is on its way.

If this news has you kicking yourself for staying in town over the construction holiday, know that there's also a positive weather update to look forward to in the coming days: you could see the northern lights aka aurora borealis across Quebec — you'll just have to endure warmer-than-usual nighttime temperatures to do so.

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What's up, Montreal? Ilana from MTL Blog here with another edition of What's Happening in MTL This Week, a weekly roundup of everything you need to know to crush the seven days to come.

Yes, I've changed the name again. Bear with me as I experiment to figure out what you guys like, what you don't and how to appease the SEO gods all at once while writing this column.

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The Montreal sky got a major 'glow-up' over the weekend, as the northern lights aka aurora borealis put on a rare, dazzling celestial show.

You would normally need to travel to the geographic area under the auroral oval to see these dancing ribbons of colourful light, which are actually bursts of energetic particles from the sun. For instance, you'd have to go to Sweden, Russia, Iceland or far north in Quebec, around Kuujjuaq.

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In the dark of night on March 23, a dazzling geomagnetic phenomenon shed its light across Canada — and tonight, Canadians can look forward to a minor encore. This instance of aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, is being triggered by intense solar winds, which bring some beautiful disturbance to the Earth's magnetic field.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a Space Weather Prediction Centre, which sounds extremely cool, and which first predicted a geomagnetic storm on March 22.

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If you've always dreamed of seeing the aurora borealis but don't live up in the far north territories, the northern lights forecast for the next three days is looking good across most of Canada, so you might be able to catch a glimpse in more southern parts of Quebec!

The Aurora Forecast predicts that October 5 will have an "elevated aurora" activity level with a "good chance of isolated minor auroral substorms." These conditions should be favourable for major aurora activity, so now is the time to stay alert.

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A geomagnetic storm could mean more northern lights sightings, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Its Space Weather Prediction Center first issued a storm watch on August 16 following what it said were "eruptions" from an active sunspot resulting in an "elevated and disturbed solar wind field."

That solar wind has the potential to wreak havoc when it reaches Earth's magnetic field, "Disrupting communications, the electric power grid, navigation, radio, and satellite operations," according to the NOAA — hence the term "geomagnetic storm."

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