An intense thunderstorm that rolled through the Calgary area on Monday night has left large swaths of damage. Broken windows, dented cars, and damage to Calgary International Airport's terminal have been reported.

Storm Damage

On Monday night, an emergency alert was issued just before 7:45 pm local time warning Calgary area residents of a strong storm. This storm was forecasted to produce strong wind gusts, heavy rain, and baseball-size hail.

Videos from multiple Calgarians flooded social media, illustrating the storm's huge impact on the area.

It wasn't long before videos began surfacing showing the storm's damage to Calgary International Airport (YYC). Alarms can be heard sounding and water can be seen falling onto the floor along with roof panels falling.

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YYC Airport's official X account confirmed that the airport terminal building had been damaged due to the heavy rainfall and hail.

Given that there were passengers in the airport at the time, the B and C-Gates had been evacuated for the safety of everyone. Thankfully, no injuries had been reported.

Heather Pimiskern, a meteorologist from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), says that this was a supercell storm which is not rare for Alberta. A 2020 storm caused $1.2 billion in damages to the Calgary area. It is yet to be disclosed how much damage Monday's storm had caused.

She noted that such severe weather has been seen in the Calgary area before including the size of hail reported in Monday's storm.

The largest reported hail was larger than a golf ball at a size of roughly five centimeters or two inches.

Aircraft Damage

Photos coming from YYC Airport following the storm show drenched airport carpets and wet ceiling tiles on the floor.

As of Wednesday morning, more than 70 flights had been canceled at Calgary Airport with 30 of those being departures and 40 being flights scheduled to the city.

Calgary Airport has seen various travel disruptions this year. In July, a WestJet mechanics strike grounded many flights over the Canada Day long weekend. In January, a massive winter storm left multiple flights canceled due to the extreme cold.

WestJet, Calgary's hub airline, reported that 16 aircraft, or 10% of its entire fleet had been grounded due to significant storm-related damage. 

The airline reported on Wednesday that these aircraft required "substantial repairs and inspections" before being cleared to fly again. Two aircraft have been cleared to fly with minor damage.

WestJet did not specify which planes were damaged. However, Calgary Airport's Flightradar24 page shows several WestJet and Air Canada that have been on the ground for approximately 40 hours - the time elapsed since the storm hit at the time of writing this article.

The WestJet aircraft meeting involved include multiple Dash 8 Q400s, Boeing 737-700s, 737-800s, 737 MAX 8s, a Saab 340 (C-GPCT), and a Boeing 787-9 (C-GUDO).

There was also an Air Canada 787-9 (C-FGEO) that was due to operate a flight to London Heathrow Monday night which was canceled. That aircraft was ferried to Toronto Wednesday afternoon.

Air Canada also had an A320 (C-FCQD) and a Q400 (C-GGNF) on the ground since Monday's storm.

As expected, most cancelations at YYC were from WestJet flights. The airline noted that passengers should expect widespread cancelations across its network "to account for decreased capacity for the foreseeable future".

Because WestJet has multiple planes out of service thanks to storm damage, it cannot continue to fly its initially planned schedule explaining the multiple cancelations.

248 WestJet flights have been canceled across its network since the Monday storm. The airline is offering free one-time waivers for flight changes or cancelations. Furthermore, WestJet noted that all canceled flights will be refunded or credited