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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A severe thunderstorm Sunday night sparked almost 80,000 lightning strikes across Yellowknife and the NWT, shutting down power in the city several times.

Lightning crashes near Robinson Shaft at Con Mine in Yellowknife, Aug 10. Below, lightening strikes near downtown Yellownife. - photos courtesy of James MacKenzie

"The Yellowknife area experienced thunder and lightning with rain from approximately 11 p.m. until 3:30 a.m.," said Dan Kulak, a meteorologist with Environment Canada. "This is the type of storm that we're more used to seeing across the prairies," he said.

Kulak said the powerful system developed Sunday afternoon along the NWT-Alberta border and shifted northward, reaching the capital by the evening hours.

Vaughn Slade, communications coordinator with NWT Power Corporation said there were a total of eight power outages due to the storm - the first beginning around 11:30 p.m.

"The longest outage was 40 minutes long," he said.

Northland Utility superintendent Albert Bouchard said repair crews had restored all power to the city by early Monday afternoon.

"Calls started coming to us early in the morning when people started to get out of bed," he said.

Bouchard estimated damages to the system cost $20,000 to $30,000.

"We replaced three transformers," said Bouchard. Several other fuses and equipment were also replaced.

Bouchard, who moved up from Alberta less than a year ago, said the storm reminded him of thunder and lightning storms he had experienced in Calgary.

Judy Brennan said the storm was very intense. "Holy macaroni, it was something else," said Brennan, who has lived in Yellowknife for 25 years.

"It sounded like the storm was right on top of us. I thought it was going to rip the house in half."

Data collected by Environment and Natural Resources indicated lightning struck about 78,315 times - a tally accumulated over a 24-hour period coinciding with the storm's activity.

ENR spokesperson Judy McLinton said thunderstorm activity in the region was very intense over the weekend.

"On Saturday across the NWT region we had 60,000 strikes, so we think it may be a new record," she said.

Environment Canada couldn't say whether the thunderstorm activity over the two-day period set any precedent. McLinton said only a small percentage of the lightning strikes posed any risk of sparking forest fires.

"Most of the lightning was what we call wet lightning, which means that it comes with rain," she explained.

Regardless, ENR reported 39 new forest fires in the NWT over the weekend - lifting the total number of fires for the season to 205. Considering the amount of lightning strikes, it's a small increase for two days of intense storm activity, McLinton said.

"There are four fires burning now near Lutsel K'e, burning about 40 kilometres away and we're taking action on those."

ENR is monitoring one other fire in the North Slave region.

McLinton said another fire is burning near McNallie Falls, 30 km west of Enterprise.

No mapping has been done of the new fires. It's unclear how large they are.

"They may not be that big," said McLinton, "but we're making an initial attack because there are a few cabins and camps at risk there, so we'll attack them while they're still small."