thunderstorm warning toronto

A severe thunderstorm lit up Toronto's skies last night and the views are nuts

Summer may be on the way out, but Toronto experienced a late-season blast of severe weather overnight in the form of a dramatic thunderstorm that lit up city skies with near-constant lightning strikes.

Environment Canada issued severe thunderstorm watches and warnings for the Greater Toronto Area on Tuesday night, and it didn't take long for the storm to bring some major voltage to the night sky.

One video recorded over just a twenty-minute span managed to capture half a dozen lightning strikes on the CN Tower, which has become somewhat of a holy grail for storm photographers in Toronto.

It seemed many phones and cameras were trained on the CN Tower, resulting in some unbelievably spectacular videos of the blinding flashes striking the tallest freestanding structure in the Western Hemisphere.

Even Aura, a building maligned for its cheesy design and what could be the worst mall in Toronto, manages to impress in this Blade Runner-esque shot.

The views were just as spectacular from a distance, with this video captured from outside of downtown showing an absolutely massive lightning strike momentarily illuminating the full skyline.

As impressive as things were in Toronto, the storm hit other parts of Southern Ontario much harder. This ominous cloud spotted near Walkerton is pretty terrifying, looking like a scene from the U.S.' Tornado Alley.

Out in Sauble Beach, the storm showed off its more destructive side, pummeling the area with hail that brought property damage.

With summer drawing to a close, we may not get many more — if any — thunderstorms for 2021, though storm watchers in the city have had plenty of fireworks to watch this season.

Lead photo by

Paul Bruch


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