Holy LIGHTNING — What happened last night?!
An intense area of thunderstorms moved across the Avalon Peninsula last night. This brought very persistent thunder and lightning to a large area over the course of several hours. Above is a radar loop showing how the cluster of storms evolved as it traversed the Avalon late Wednesday evening into early Thursday morning. I am working on gathering some concrete data, but I will argue that last night, the Avlaon Peninsula probably saw more lightning than we have in several years, combined.
According to Newfoundland Power, at one point, nearly 10,000 customers were without power! As of this afternoon, that number is dwindling to just a few.
So what causes lightning?
Lightning happens when the atmosphere builds up a strong electrical charge—usually inside a thunderstorm. As the storm develops, different parts of the cloud become positively and negatively charged. The imbalance gets so strong that the energy has to release, and it does that in a flash—literally. That’s lightning. It can strike within the cloud, between clouds, or down to the ground, and it all happens in a fraction of a second.
Why did so many of us see it last night?
Lightning can be seen from so far away at night because it’s incredibly bright—brighter than almost anything else in the sky. When it flashes, it lights up the clouds and the atmosphere around it, and since there’s no sunlight competing with it at night, it really stands out. Even if the storm is 50 or 100 kilometers away, that flash can still catch your eye across the horizon.
What about thunderstorms causes lightning?
Thunderstorms are the engine behind it all. They form when warm, moist air rises and cools, creating towering clouds that can stretch tens of thousands of feet into the atmosphere. Inside those clouds, air currents push ice crystals and water droplets around, causing collisions that separate charges—positive going one way, negative the other. That’s what sets the stage for lightning. The bigger and more intense the storm, the more energy it can build—and the greater the chance you’ll see a flash or hear a crack of thunder. Thunder is caused by the rapid expansion of air that’s been superheated by a lightning bolt—it heats the air to around 30,000°C in an instant, and that explosive expansion creates the sound we hear as thunder.
Along with the thunder, we did experience some rain last night, and some areas likely received more than what is listed above. More showers are in the forecast over the next few days, but I have doubts we will see anything like this in the near future!
