Severe weather strikes

It will likely go down in the books as the fiercest storm to hit Waterloo Region this summer. A severe storm rolled in off Lake Huron late yesterday afternoon and tracked across much of Ontario.

There were reports of possible tornadoes to the north and northwest of us; in the Lucan area, near Shelburne and between St. Joseph and Bayfield.

There were no reports of tornadoes here, but a tornado warning was issued for Waterloo Region and much of the surrounding area.

The thunderstorms were intense, including torrential rains and resulted in a number of downed trees and power lines, power outages and some road closures. Many of the closures happening in the Cambridge area.

Here is video of the storm shot by a 570 News listener...



Regional Police were swamped with calls for assistance.

Officials are investigating whether a home on Zeller Drive in Kitchener was struck by lightning.

According to Environment Canada, there were one thousand lightning strikes every two minutes across southern Ontario.

The phone lines in the 570 Newsroom lit up with listeners telling us what they saw. We received calls from across the Region with some saying they have never seen anything like it. Some said they witnessed actual lightning strikes.