Lightning strikes lit up the skies across B.C.'s South Coast overnight in a rare display as a severe thunderstorm passed over the region, snarling traffic at Vancouver International Airport and causing flight issues in the process.
"This was quite the system, hundreds of cloud to ground strikes … mainly in Vancouver/Richmond," CBC meteorologist Johanna Wagstaffe said.
Wagstaffe said the centre of a low-pressure system pushed onshore near Richmond after travelling from the equator, loaded with moisture.
A preliminary count from Environment Canada reported more than 1,800 incidences of lightning over the Lower Mainland on Saturday night and Sunday morning, while the B.C. Wildfire Service said it recorded more than 7,000 strikes provincewide.
B.C. Hydro reported numerous outages overnight. As of Sunday morning, over 3,800 customers were without power in the Lower Mainland and Sunshine Coast regions.
The storm created havoc at Vancouver International Airport (YVR), causing multiple overnight delays and cancellations between about 9 p.m. Saturday and 3 a.m. PT on Sunday.
That left hundreds of passengers like Simone McCallum stranded at the airport terminal overnight.
McCallum said passengers were directed to head back to the check-in area for new boarding passes, but were not allowed back through security again — leaving them to sit or sleep on the ground.
"It was horrible, there was no place to stretch out at all, almost every surface where you could put yourself down was hard as rock," she said.
"I can't even imagine what that would have been like with children, or if you had some kind of physical disability. It would have been just a complete nightmare."
the scene at <a href="https://x.com/hashtag/YVR?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#YVR</a> at 4am today. pandemonium! <a href="https://t.co/OZbU9EdhPB">pic.twitter.com/OZbU9EdhPB</a>
YVR spokesperson Stephen Smart apologized to travellers who were inconvenienced, and said the airport called in extra staff as quickly as it could to help deal with the situation.
Smart said the storm delivered lightning for more than five hours and dumped 64 millimetres of rain on the airport, more than double the precipitation the facility usually gets in the entire month of August.
Videos posted to social media also appeared to show flooding in parts of the airport.
"Normally when we see something like that, it lasts for 20-30 minutes, operations get back to normal. Last night our operations were effectively paused," Smart said.
