Big money riding on this folks…someone is claiming that they can see the United States from approximately this location in Toronto. Under what, if any, circumstances could this be scientifically possible? The person claims the apartment was on the 12th floor of a building though I am both interested in that location (12 story) in particular and even the highest point in the city in general.
Is it possible to view (without the use of a device or technology) any part of the USA from Toronto?
From a cursory glance at the map it looks like the distance from that spot in Toronto to the shoreline of New York across Lake Ontario is around 40 miles. Assuming a 12-storey building is a very generous 200 feet tall, you could only see about 17 miles to the horizon on a clear day.
My guess is he was looking at a chunk of Ontario on his right and thought it was New York.
ETA: If my calculations are correct, in order to see 40 miles, you’d have to be higher than 1100 feet.
How convenient that Toronto has just such an edifice. It is in fact possible to see parts of the State of New York from the CN Tower’s highest observation deck.
From the position linked in the OP, though… uhhhh, I’m a little confused. That’s in the middle of the city in a place with no tall buildings. You couldn’t see anything but the buildings and streets around you.
How can I prove all of this with science?
Also it’s worth pointing out that the point I linked to in google maps is quite significantly higher in terms of the elevation of the street as compared to the base of the city where the CN Tower is located.
Figure out the height above sea level for your observation point. (i.e. elevation plus the height of the building.)
Assume the earth is a sphere with a radius of roughly 6,378,000 meters. Draw a triangle with a right angle between a line from the center of the earth to the surface at the horizon (where you’re looking) and between the horizon point and the observer at the top of the building. The hypotenuse goes from the observer to the center of the earth and is therefore equal to the earth’s radius plus the height of the building. The line from the horizon point to the center of the earth is exactly the radius of the earth.
Use the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate the distance of the horizon line. Convert to English units if desired.
Google Earth is pretty useful for these “can you see X from Y” questions. Just navigate to wherever and then put the viewpoint at ground level (or 6 ft) and look around.
Did this person specify that they could see land in the United States? Assuming they can even see the lake, the border is only 20 miles away.
ETA: FWIW, I once stayed in a hotel in Oakville and could see the buildings of Niagara Falls with binoculars. That’s around 40 miles.
Well, measuring the distance on Google Earth, it only comes to about 30 miles across the lake, not 40.
nm
Can you get direct, as the crow flys distances from Google as opposed to driving distance?
Yes, there is a measuring tool available on the toolbar at the top which allows you to measure straight line distances, or multi-segment paths.
Not seeing it. What should I look for.
I’m not in front of a pc at the moment, but from memory the icon on the button looks like a vertical blue ruler. This is in Google Earth. Distance measurement in Maps is a Labs feature, so still in Beta. It is possible though.
New York
I don’t know if there are any mountains or tall structures on the US side of Lake Ontario, but if there are you’d need to take it into account. Calculate the horizon distance for the twelfth floor in Toronto (relative to Lake Ontario rather than sea level). According to the first horizon calculator I found, Distance to the Horizon Calculator, the horizon on the lake surface would be about 15 miles away.
Then, do a similar calculation for any such high point on the US side, and add the results. If the total is greater than the actual distance between the two points, then there would be a line of sight from at least the top of the US location to the Toronto location.
You have to enable it in ‘Maps Labs’ - link at the bottom left corner. After that there will be a little ruler icon beside the scale.
I’m pretty sure I could (just) make out Niagara Falls from the CN Tower when I visited.
Last summer, I was in Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, which is on the Canadian side of the Niagara River – but the U.S. is only a couple of hundred yards to the east, on the other side of the river.
We walked down to the shore of Lake Ontario, and we could pretty clearly see downtown Toronto on the other side of the lake. Granted, it was a clear, sunny day, and we may have only been seeing the taller buildings, rather than “ground level”…as there aren’t many (if any) tall buildings on the south side of the lake (at least not until you get down into the Niagara Falls area, maybe 10 miles or so further south), I’m not sure if anything in the vicinity of where we were would have been visible from Toronto, unless you were up in a tall building.
That’s the big factor. I had posted that I can see Toronto from New York but I realized I was seeing the CN Tower and there are no equivalent tall buildings on the New York shore.
This is the United Office Building in Niagara Falls. It’s the tallest building in the city*. As you can see, it’s nowhere comparable in height to the CN Tower. And it’s ten miles away from the lakeshore. I doubt very much you can see it from Toronto.
*Assuming it’s still standing. I haven’t been in that area in a while. The United Office Building has been unoccupied for years and there have been ongoing talks that it should be torn down.