Hurricane Teddy was downgraded to a post-tropical storm Tuesday night as it closed in on Nova Scotia, which is expected to receive the worst conditions late Wednesday morning.
According to the Canadian Hurricane Centre, Teddy is set to make landfall along eastern Nova Scotia in the morning. It will weaken as it travels along the coast across the Gulf of St. Lawrence toward northern Newfoundland, where it will arrive by Wednesday night.
Canadian Hurricane Centre meteorologist Bob Robichaud said earlier Tuesday that the storm is moving about 45 kilometres per hour towards Atlantic Canada.
The storm’s maximum sustained winds were clocked at 160 km/h, but it was expected to lose strength in Canadian waters.
Shortly after midnight Wednesday, those winds were estimated to be roughly 120 km/h at maximum, though Environment Canada said Newfoundland could see gusts up to 130 km/h in the evening.
Robichaud said a high tide will be coming in Tuesday evening and could result in large areas of coastal flooding.
He said Halifax and up the eastern shore may be at risk of flooding in the overnight hours Tuesday and Wednesday.
By Wednesday morning, the Canadian Hurricane Centre said parts of Cape Breton had already seen up to 120 millimetres of rain and could see another 150 millimetres by the end of the day.
The rest of Nova Scotia — along with Prince Edward Island, parts of Newfoundland and southern Quebec — is likely to see between 50 and 75 millimetres Wednesday after already seeing up to 50 millimetres overnight.
Read more:
Halifax urges evacuation for some areas, halts ferry, bus service ahead of hurricane Teddy
Nova Scotia Power Chief Operating Officer Mark Sidebottom said the company has spent the summer planning how to respond to a storm using COVID-19-safe protocols.
Sidebottom said 170 crews came from out-of-province but inside the Atlantic bubble. Another 130 have been mobilized within Nova Scotia.
Sidebottom said around 1,000 people in total are ready to respond to emergencies, and crews are evenly dispersed across the province.
In addition, he said NS Power has invested $20 million since hurricane Dorian in vegetation preparedness, including removing trees from power lines.
Sidebottom said the company will do everything it can to restore power outages expected to hit Nova Scotians in the next 72 hours.
“Over the years we’ve lost a lot of people who have gone to the coastline to watch those waves and that’s what we need to avoid in this storm especially,” he said.
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SOURCE: https://www.w24news.com
