Toronto was hit with a one-two punch of late summer storms last night, lighting up social media channels with spectacular photos of swirling black clouds and jolts of lightning.
The city was put under a severe thunderstorm warning from Environment Canada yesterday evening, as dark clouds brought early dusk to the north end of Toronto just before 7 p.m.
Photos of the approaching storm all show a wall of dark grey bisected by a menacing, bubbling, at times pitch-black cloud.
Known as a "shelf cloud" or "arcus cloud," these clouds form at the leading edge of a heavy storm, making for some outstanding photos and videos of the approaching weather system.
The arrival of these ominous clouds was followed by torrential downpours and high winds in an otherworldly show of force from nature.
The big shelf cloud finally arrived in the city centre, seen here darkening the skies behind the CN Tower.
A second severe thunderstorm warning was issued by Environment Canada just a few hours later, shortly after 10 p.m.
This second wave came with a bit more voltage, lightning frequently illuminating the sky blue and purple throughout the storm.
Patches of power outages were reported across Toronto as heavy winds and fallen branches downed power lines, leaving over 27,000 in the dark.
Toronto Hydro was able to resolve most of the outages within hours of the storm, though pockets of Leaside and Leslieville remain without power as of Wednesday morning.
The bulk of the danger was over by 11:15 p.m., when Environment Canada lifted the thunderstorm warning.
More trouble was predicted for other parts of the province, with The Weather Network warning of "a complex of storms" threatening severe winds and the chance of tornadoes.
A tornado was indeed reported in Port Elgin, though the report is not yet confirmed.
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