A rare weather event startled Richmond residents on Monday night and appeared to briefly knock out the power for a few others.
A “thundersnow shower” crackled and lit up the sky above Richmond at around 10:10 p.m.
Angie Kumagai Copeland captured the video below at her home in east Richmond at around 10:10 p.m., which shows a lightning bolt hitting the ground, followed by an ear-shattering crack of thunder.
According to some residents using Twitter, several centimetres of snow fell out of the sky around the same time as a large flash and rumble of thunder.
Angela Ellis also posted a video of the moment on Twitter, while Richmond News reporter Valerie Leung, who lives in Hamilton, described a “single flash of lightning, horrendously loud thunder and then maybe 15 minutes of snow.”
The brief storm was also witnessed in parts of Delta, New Westminster, Coquitlam and the Tri-Cities.
Thundersnow, while relatively rare, is more common with lake-effect snow in the Great Lakes area of the United States and Canada, the Midwestern United States, Oklahoma, and the Great Salt Lake.
