Hurricane warnings were issued Thursday night for parts of the Atlantic Canada coast and forecasters with the country’s hurricane center warned that Fiona has the chance to be a “potential landmark weather event” for the country.
Published Sep. 22, 2022 3:05 PM EDT | Updated Sep. 23, 2022 11:41 AM EDT
Days after menacing Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the Turks and Caicos and other parts of the Caribbean, Fiona is now on a collision course with Atlantic Canada and is poised to become one of the strongest storms on record to impact the easternmost portions of Canada, according to AccuWeather forecasters.
Hurricane warnings and tropical storm warnings were issued for parts of the Atlantic Canada coast, with the Canadian Hurricane Center warning the storm could potentially evolve into "a landmark weather event" for Eastern Canada this weekend.
“This could be the storm of a lifetime for some people,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said Thursday.
Fiona is expected to bombard eastern Prince Edward Island, eastern Nova Scotia and Quebec, western Newfoundland and southeastern Labrador with life-threatening flooding, damaging hurricane-force wind gusts and dangerous storm surges. Fiona "is shaping up to be a severe event for Atlantic Canada and eastern Quebec," officials with the hurricane center said Thursday.
Hurricane Fiona, a Category 4 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, shown from AccuWeather's RealVue™ satellite on Sept. 21, 2022. (AccuWeather)
As of Friday morning EDT, Fiona transitioned to a Category 3 major hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (205 km/h). However at midday, the hurricane had regained Category 4 strength with sustained winds back up to 130 mph (215 km/h). It was moving to the north-northeast and away from Bermuda at a brisk speed of 35 mph. As of 11 a.m. Friday EDT, Fiona was about 600 miles (970 km) south of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Fiona is expected to move quickly northward into Atlantic Canada while maintaining its hurricane intensity, bringing damaging winds, flooding rain and coastal flooding, which forecasters warned could lead to widespread power outages.
Satellite imagery on Friday showed that Fiona was an enormous storm with hurricane-force winds extending outward about 115 miles (185 km) from the center of the storm and tropical-storm-force winds extending 345 miles (555 km).
"Fiona will likely be the most intense storm on record, when taking into account the central pressure and the magnitude of wind gusts that are expected to strike eastern Nova Scotia through this weekend," said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson, who routinely issues weather forecasts for Canada.
In 2019, Hurricane Dorian brought significant damage to Nova Scotia as a Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale and was in the process of losing wind intensity when it made landfall along the south coast of Nova Scotia. Winds gusted as high as 96 mph (155 km/h) along the coast, with widespread damage to structures and trees. More than about 500,000 people in the region lost power.
Dorian also made landfall over a more populated area, whereas Fiona is forecast to make landfall about 124 miles (200 km) farther east over Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. However, AccuWeather forecasters anticipate Fiona to make landfall as a Category 2 hurricane Saturday morning local time and bring severe impacts to the region that could be similar if not worse than Dorian's in 2019.
"Fiona will bring widespread power outages due to high winds, flooding due to torrential rain and isolated storm surge and massive seas offshore and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence," Anderson added.
Peak wind gusts of 100-120 mph (160-190 km/h) from Fiona are expected to impact far eastern Nova Scotia early Saturday morning with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 130 mph (210 km/h). Winds from 40-60 mph (60-100 km/h) could spread from far eastern Maine to eastern Quebec and Labrador.
Widespread heavy downpours of 4-8 inches (100-200 mm) could occur across northern Nova Scotia and southwestern Newfoundland, with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 10 inches (330mm) of rainfall possible. Rainfall of that magnitude could lead to substantial flooding, AccuWeather experts said, and although the storm is expected to move quickly through the region, if the storm were to slow down at all, it could lead to higher local rainfall totals.
Flooding in any urban areas or along roads could be exacerbated by falling leaves that may be clogging storm drains, resulting in severe ponding on roadways.
"Fiona is expected to cause significant loss of leaves, which will probably have a major negative impact on the fall color in October," Anderson explained.
Also, with the heavy rainfall and intense wind gusts, many uprooted trees and snapped tree limbs are anticipated in the region and could cause widespread power outages north of Halifax, Nova Scotia and southwest of St. John's, Newfoundland.
The combination of flooding rainfall, destructive winds, dangerous seas and widespread power outages means that Fiona has been rated as a 4 on the AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes.
"Wave heights may reach 50 feet just offshore Cape Breton with significant coastal inundation into many harbors and inlets, which will damage boats and property," Anderson said.
Courtesy Saildrone/NOAA
Fiona has already generated some towering waves as it churned across the Atlantic this week. A Saildrone device that was deployed into the ocean to measure wave heights and other weather data related to Fiona reported waves to 47 feet on Thursday as the storm tracked over the open Atlantic.
With progressively colder waters prevalent over the North Atlantic, due to the icy Labrador current, powerful hurricanes often quickly lose their punch or transform into tropical wind and rainstorms.
But this year, water temperatures have been running 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit (6-11 C) higher than average over the North Atlantic, especially just south of Atlantic Canada, and those warmer-than-usual waters may result in less weakening of the hurricane or a slower transformation to a rainstorm. Water temperatures range from near 60 F (16 C) near the coast of Nova Scotia to 84 F (29 C) off the southeast coast of New England.
The Atlantic hurricane season, which was off to a notably slow start during its first half, has roared back to life during the month of September – and that is in no small part due to the power and longevity of Hurricane Fiona. Meteorologists gauge the overall intensity of a hurricane season using a metric known as ACE, or the accumulated cyclone energy of each named storm in a hurricane season.
Just a week ago, the 2022 ACE value stood at 31.1 as of Sept. 16, according to Colorado State University (CSU), and was dramatically trailing the pace of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, which finished with a value of 145.7. But thanks to Fiona, which has racked up an ACE value of 25.0 through early Sept. 23 – the most of any Atlantic hurricane so far this year – the season’s total ACE has catapulted to 57.9. That figure still trails what is considered a normal ACE value, 82.9, through this point of the Atlantic hurricane season, according to CSU.
READ MORE HERE:
Track these severe weather conditions and more with the AccuWeather app. For next-level safety, unlock AccuWeather Alerts™ with Premium+. These advanced, hyperlocal notifications are prompted by our expert meteorologists and are often delivered much further ahead of government warnings when possible.
Subscribe to AccuWeather on Apple News.
No comments:
Post a Comment