![\"Comment](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-09-at-24049-pm_4560.png\"\/)
<\/p>\nWhen Rochester, N.Y. meteorologist Eric Snitil shared a photo of a fiery sunset over Lake Ontario, he probably wasn’t expecting to ignite a cross-border debate.<\/p>\n
That’s exactly what happened after Snitil suggested the image captured a distant view of Toronto’s skyline, including the iconic CN Tower, from roughly 100 kilometres away across the lake.<\/p>\n
“That’s not supposed to be there. But it is. You’re looking at the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, over 100 miles away,” the meteorologist wrote on X, sparking disbelief and drawing nearly 150,000 views.<\/p>\n
Social media users were quick to call foul.<\/p>\n
The post quickly garnered attention from Canadians and Americans alike, with many trying to determine whether the tiny silhouette on the horizon was actually the CN Tower.<\/p>\n
The skepticism isn’t surprising.<\/p>\n
The U.S. meteorologist explains what appears in the image is not just a distant skyline but a striking atmospheric mirage. Under normal conditions, the curvature of the Earth makes it difficult or impossible to see much of Toronto’s skyline from Rochester with the naked eye. But Lake Ontario has long been known for producing rare atmospheric refraction events that can make distant skylines appear to rise above the horizon.<\/p>\n
“The mirage is affecting the clouds and sky as a whole,” Snitil shares in his X post. “I’ve seen some strange mirages through the years and this is the most pronounced cases of the CN Tower I’ve captured.”<\/p>\n
Many commenters aren’t buying it.<\/p>\n
Some insist the object was a cloud formation, while others argued Toronto sits too far away to be visible from western New York.<\/p>\n
The disbelief became part of the appeal, with users zooming into the image and debating whether the thin vertical structure on the horizon could really be the CN Tower or perhaps just a nearby 5G cell tower.<\/p>\n
One X user is convinced that the tower displayed in the sunset capture is that of a cell tower.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Comment screengrab courtesy: @JonFraserTF\/X<\/p>\n
This Torontonian shares a similar sentiment in reverse, writing that they hope they can see Rochester from Canada, adding that seeing the image “makes us all feel nostalgic for a simpler time.”<\/p>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-09-at-24247-pm_8886.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Image screengrab of comment courtesy: @dexter_doggie\/X<\/p>\n
This X commenter from Toronto says the tower in the image “doesn’t look anything like the CN Tower.”<\/p>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-09-at-24529-pm_9239.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Image screengrab of comment courtesy: @MEKowalski\/X<\/p>\n
This X-user brought a heartwarming cross-border moment to the comments, saying “I’m waving to you from just over near the edge on the right!”<\/p>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-09-at-24715-pm_6910.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Image screengrab of comment courtesy: @menopauzilla\/X<\/p>\n
Another commenter praised the meteorologist for his cleaver eye.<\/p>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-09-at-25028-pm_1827.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Image screengrab of comment courtesy: @gcca\/X<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Rochester, N.Y. meteorologist Eric Snitil shared a photo of a fiery sunset over Lake Ontario, he probably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[13212,13009,16227,48],"class_list":["post-81590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-cn-tower","tag-lake-ontario","tag-meteorologist","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}