More Warnings Issued Ahead Of Hurricane Earl As Storm Churns Toward Maritimes
Posted September 3, 2010 6:57 am.
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Tropical storm watches have been extended to Cape Breton and Iles-de-la-Madeleine as hurricane Earl barrels toward Atlantic Canada.
The Category 2 storm — which is now east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina — is expected to make landfall in the vicinity of western Nova Scotia or the Fundy coast of New Brunswick early Saturday.
The Canadian Hurricane Centre says Earl’s maximum sustained winds are about 167 kilometres an hour and the storm is moving north-northeast at 30 km/h.
Hurricane watches remain in place across southwestern Nova Scotia — in Queens, Shelburne, Yarmouth and Digby counties.
Other areas of mainland Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are either under tropical storm watches or warnings.
In southeastern New Brunswick, rainfall warnings and tropical storm watches are in effect.
Environment Canada says it is likely that portions of southwestern Nova Scotia will have wind gusts reaching or exceeding 100 km/h.
Elsewhere along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia as far as the eastern shore and the Bay of Fundy, maximum wind gusts will likely reach 90 km/h.
Between 40 and 70 millimetres of rain will likely fall on Saturday, with southern and central New Brunswick and northwestern P.E.I. expected to receive the most.
The hurricane’s squalls have started lashing North Carolina’s dangerously exposed Outer Banks, the first stop on the storm’s projected path up the Eastern Seaboard.
