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.
Just one of the many lightning flashes last night as seen from near #YYT. Storm was moving quickly keeping rainfall totals relatively modest:
— Rodney Barney (@rcbstormpost) July 31, 2025
26.8 mm (CBS);
22.1 mm (Mount Pearl);
15.6 mm (Paradise);
13.2 mm (Downtown);
10.2 mm (St. John's East);
8.0 mm (St. John's YYT).#nlwx pic.twitter.com/XkT3Og5Bqx
It was the most intense lightning storm I think I’ve ever seen here and rivals ones I’ve seen on Florida for its duration and intensity .
I was amazed how much dry lightning there was. It seemed to flash and crash for ages, but rain didn’t last that long. Funniest part was one huge crash that seemed to trigger a bunch of car alarms close to me.
Definitely not normal for NL, cool experience but scary knowing that the climate is changing at an alarming rate where things like this can happen
I’m in my late sixties and I cannot remember anything like what we witnessed last night. Like Valerie, I’ve witnessed some severe storms in Ontario, Florida and Europe. Last night’s storms rivalled them all.
I’ve never seen a storm like it in all my life living here. At its peak, there was so much lightning that the sky never went dark; incredible! I enjoy storms at a distance when the thunder rumbles, but when it’s so close that the rumbles are ear shattering cracks and bangs and the house starts shaking… then I don’t like it anymore, lol.
It was certainly an experience.
I noticed at times during the storm the wind was very high; and then it would completely stop. Eddie, any link between thunder and lightening and wind?
Lightning struck a transformer outside of our house and the bang was super loud! Took 12 hours for power to be restored and now there are people here cleaning up oil that sprayed over a tree and the grass in our front lawn from the transformer!
Lighting Strikes – Ozzy
I loves it man fuckin loves it
I’ve never in my life seen something like it!
It was beautiful.
—Wow that was something !! I Love this App..I can get our Local weather any time during the Day. Also—Thank you for including the position of the Jet Stream —Bless you Eddy!!
Absolutely love this App! That’s how we found out this was going to hit us last night! Awesome job!!!
The last time I saw something like this, heard as well, was about 11 years ago. It was the last summer my grandmother was alive and just when I’d gotten my new car. We even had water spouts and funnel clouds! The thunder was so loud that day we thought a car had struck the house
Last time I experienced loud thunder like that in St. John’s was my first year of university in residence, around end of summer 2010. Woke up in the middle of the night to a massive boom! Took me a moment to come to terms with what I was hearing