Vancouver residents shared videos of a tempestuous weather system rolling in over the ocean this week.
On Tuesday (March 1), many locals took to social media to post videos and photos of a thunderstorm that appeared in the city during an otherwise dry and cloudy day. While other parts of the lower mainland were dry, some people in the city heard booming thunder accompanied by flashes of lightning.
March 1 is the meteorological start of spring and the time of year when the region will start to see more stormy weather.
While they might occur in the winter, they are less common because there's not as much heat to make moist air rise. That said, they generally occur far less often in Vancouver than in many other places across the country.
Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist told Vancouver Is Awesome in a previous interview that the cold water off Vancouver Island "prevents the daytime heating from really kicking off and that's what gives us thunderstorms."
Lundquist added that the real wild displays that go on for half an hour or longer are "really an inland thing."
Do Metro Vancouver's mountains prevent thunderstorms?
"No. In the interior that's where thunderstorms start because it is an elevated heat and moisture source," Lundquist explained.
While the mountains don't protect the Lower Mainland from thunderstorms, they break up other stormy weather events, such as tornadoes.
Have a look at a couple of time-lapse videos of this week's stormy weather event.
