As the final weekend of summer comes to a close, many people across the Atlantic provinces are preparing for the first hurricane of the season to make landfall in what’s been a very active hurricane season.
Environment Canada issued a tropical cyclone statement on Saturday for Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and parts of Newfoundland and Labrador ahead of Hurricane Teddy’s arrival on Tuesday.
Bob Robichaud, a meteorologist with the Canadian Hurricane Centre, said the hurricane has been downgraded to a Category 2 system as it begins to pass to the east of Bermuda Sunday.
He said it is expected to advance north over the next two days and approach the coast of Nova Scotia on Tuesday, bringing strong winds and heavy rain.
The hurricane track currently extends east of Halifax to offshore of Cape Breton. The track could potentially continue to move east by Wednesday.
“All that area is still at play for the storm to actually track,” Robichaud said.
The strongest winds are expected to hit right of the storm track, landing offshore of Nova Scotia before moving toward Newfoundland.
But he said most of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island will still experience strong wind gusts.
Wind gusts could reach about 90 km/h along the coast of Nova Scotia, creating the potential for large waves to hit the coast by Tuesday afternoon. The rest of Nova Scotia should expect winds up to 60 to 70 km/h.
“Those winds should not be damaging winds,” Robichaud said. “There could be a few power outages but not necessarily damaging, certainly not compared to what we saw last year [during post-tropical storm Dorian].”
Robichaud said heavier rainfall will move through central and eastern parts of Nova Scotia late Tuesday and into early Wednesday with estimated rainfall amounts of 50 to 100 millimetres.
Post-tropical storm Teddy will reach Newfoundland on Wednesday and residents of the southwestern area of the province can expect high winds and possible storm surges along the coast.
Teddy is still hanging on to Cat 3. Moving E of Bermuda today. The track still brings Teddy into the coast of NS but slightly east. It will be a powerful storm bringing widespread wind, rain and storm surge. <a href=”https://twitter.com/CBCNS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@CBCNS</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/CBCNB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@CBCNB</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/CBCPEI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@CBCPEI</a> <a href=”https://t.co/mrCoiGhM7n”>pic.twitter.com/mrCoiGhM7n</a>
—@tsimpkin
Robichaud said the hurricane is tracking east of New Brunswick, but it is likely the southeast area of the province will get 20 to 30 millimetres of rain while the rest of the province may see no rain at all.
The Canadian Hurricane Centre is expected to provide another update at 1 p.m. Monday.
Nova Scotia Power preparing for outages
Nova Scotia Power said it opened its emergency operations centre at noon on Sunday to prepare for possible power outages.
“Based on the recent weather forecasts and the tropical storm models, we will be opening the Emergency Operations Centre on Sunday to ensure proper plans are in place and crews and contractors are secured in advance of potential storm impacts,” Matt Drover, Nova Scotia Power’s storm lead, said in a news release on Friday.
“We are taking every precaution and will be ready to respond to Hurricane Teddy.”
The centre will provide coordination for outage restoration and work with the Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office.
Paul Mason, its executive director, said the office has also been working with the fuel industry, telecommunications and all levels of government to prepare for the impacts of Teddy.
“What that’s meant, of course, is sharing information [and] ensuring that required assets are prepositioned [and] that specialized personnel can either be mobilized within the province or in some cases brought in,” Mason said.
He said the office has also been working to ensure that required personnel and assets can be made available in a safe way during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Based on the discussions, we’ve had with those partners and the predictions that we have at this time, we feel we’re well positioned to respond.”
