Hurricane Fiona Twitter handle of Tony MacIntyre
Hurricane Fiona will make landfall in eastern Nova Scotia as a powerful post-tropical storm early Saturday, the Canadian Hurricane Centre reported saying.
Bob Robichaud, a warning preparedness meteorologist with the centre in a Friday afternoon briefing that the hurricane’s effects will be felt across a swath of eastern Canada including much of Nova Scotia, P.E.I., southeastern New Brunswick, western and southwestern Newfoundland, and some parts of Quebec bordering the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
After blasting Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, the powerful storm will bring strong winds, heavy rainfall and significant storm surge into the region.
“It’s still a major hurricane and it’s only 900 kilometres away from us [south of Halifax] and it’s getting bigger,” Robichaud reported saying.
Rainfalls of 100 millimetres to 150 millimetres, he cautioned are expected in Nova Scotia, with localized amounts that could be greater and added that until Saturday afternoon and into the evening wind speeds won’t drop significantly.
Fiona being similar in size to Hurricane Dorian, which hit Nova Scotia in 2019, but stronger and bigger than Hurricane Juan, the 2003 storm that pummeled Nova Scotia, it is certainly going to be a historic and extreme event for Atlantic Canada, Robichaud said.
#HurricaneFiona; #NovaScotia
