Power back on across N.S. after violent storm
Posted Jun 2, 2011 05:30:52 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A dangerous electrical storm lit up the sky over Halifax with unprecedented lightning strikes overnight while knocking out power to nearly 50,000 people across the province.
Usually Nova Scotia Power has crews working throughout a storm to restore power when it’s disrupted, but this storm proved to be too much of a risk.
“The big challenge that we faced through the night was that the storm was so violent and the lightning so frequent that it was unsafe for us to have line crews up working on those transmission lines,” said NSP spokesperson David Rhodenizer.
As many as 49,000 customers lost power across the province due to lightning strikes to the transmission towers.
By Thursday afternoon, all but a few customers had their power restored.
Environment Canada counted as many as 9,000 lightning bolts during the storm, with more over the water. An estimated 600 strikes hitting Halifax alone.
The national weather organization did not send out a warning for the severe storm until about an hour before the rain, wind, lightning and thunder was rolling over the province.
News 95.7 meteorologist Richard Zurawski explains a combination of a cold front and the overnight drop in temperature created instability and accelerated the violent storm’s approach.
“We can expect to see more of these storms coming through,” said Zurawski, looking at the long-range forecast for summer. “It’s expected to be warmer than normal. Of course, that contributes to these types of storms.”
This is also the start of hurricane season which is expected to be an above average season with between 14 and 17 named storms.
Halifax Regional Police were also kept busy overnight responding to false alarms from security systems going off due to electrical disruptions from the storm.
