There have been roughly 11,000 lightning strikes recorded in Edmonton this month, according to Environment Canada. One is sparking a lot of attention. On a sidewalk around 129 Avenue and 129 Street is the tiny crater formed by a lightning strike after last weekend’s intense storms in north Edmonton and beyond. It’s become somewhat of a neighbourhood attraction, with titillated sign-makers posting notes near the site that read, “This site has been thunderstruck,” and “Edmonton summers have rain, smoke and mosquitoes, but at least we have lightning sidewalk!” The lightning left a small crater in the pavement and hit a nearby fire hydrant, which Epcor has repainted as it is still functional. The city has marked the spot on the sidewalk, however, because underground work is needed. The city says it plans to preserve the ‘thunderstruck’ sidewalk and will give it to the University of Alberta for research purposes. CTV meteorologist Cory Edel says wet weather and heat creates the perfect storm for lightning shows, many of which are contained from cloud to cloud. “It’s been very humid in the province, and these storms are very moisture-driven. When that happens, you get very strong updrafts in the cloud storms, very strong downdrafts. You’ve got ice crystals colliding with water molecules, and electrons get sheared off,” he explained. “You get a charge building at the top of the cloud, a positive charge, and a negative charge at the bottom. When that is discharged, you have intra-cloud lightning.” Cloud-to-ground lightning, he says, is caused when a negative charge at the bottom of the cloud interacts with a positive charge on the ground. The stormy July, he added, has been full of surprises. The last time the city saw this many lightning strikes in a month was July of 2020, with about 10,000 recorded events, according to Environment Canada. “We tend to see strong systems build in where you’ve got a lot of high pressure, and they tend to be drier … That jet stream has been pulling in a lot of moisture and pushing (wildfire) smoke out to the east.” Saturday’s lightning strikes – of which Environment Canada says there were approximately 4,100 in Edmonton – were likely caused by the heat of the day and the intensity of the storm’s movement. Conversely, July 2024 and 2025 each saw about 2,000 strikes. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nahreman Issa
