HALIFAX — The remnants of hurricane Earl made landfall down the coast from Halifax on Saturday, toppling trees and bringing down power lines as the storm barrelled through the Maritimes.
The storm was classified as a tropical storm at noon local time, although the Canadian Hurricane Centre said the difference between a hurricane and tropical storm was wind speeds of only eight kilometres an hour.
Forecaster Chris Fogarty said an offshore buoy recorded wind speeds of 120 kilometres per hour on Saturday morning.
The storm, fuelled in part by air and sea temperatures warmer than normal, brought heavy sheets of rain and swift gusts.
Fogarty said Earl was expected to track over the middle of Nova Scotia throughout the day, though the winds at the centre of the storm weren’t as fierce.
“The really critical, tree damaging-type winds with possible structural damage — siding on buildings, shingles and what not — is likely to occur southeast of the track,” he said in a media briefing from the centre’s headquarters in the Halifax suburb of Dartmouth.
The centre said it would determine in its post-storm analysis whether Earl was a tropical storm or a Category 1 hurricane when it made landfall 85 km southwest of Lunenburg, N.S.
“There is conflicting information as to whether Earl was a strong tropical storm or hurricane at landfall,” the centre said in its noon bulletin.
Ron Allen ventured outside at the height of the storm to check the wharf near his home in Dayspring, not far from Bridgewater, N.S.
“When I went to bed last night, I thought the storm was going to go up the Bay of Fundy and I was feeling kind of bad for them ­­­— and sort of happy for us,” he said as the sideways rain pelted his dark green rain slicker.
“When I got up this morning, I turned on my laptop and checked — oh, jeez, it’s not going up the bay ... and I had about two minutes before the power went off. I’m hoping it doesn’t get much worse than this because we’ve got two big trees by our house.”
As Allen spoke, an RCMP cruiser raced by, it’s flashing lights reflected in the rain-slicked highway.
“There’s a lot of branches down ... What’s amusing to me is the number of cars on the road. People are out checking things.”
Halifax, Lunenburg, Guysborough and Pictou counties into Antigonish were expected to experience the strongest gusts. High winds were also forecast for Cape Breton.
There were reports of 100 km/h winds in Lunenburg and gusting to near 90 km/hr at the Halifax airport, said Fogarty.
Eastern Prince Edward Island was also in the storm’s path where the hurricane centre said property damage was a possibility from the wind.
Heavy rain was reported in parts of southern New Brunswick and police in Saint John closed access to Saints Rest Beach to stop people from heading to the shoreline to watch waves.
Power outages were spreading across southern Nova Scotia, including Halifax, and the Annapolis Valley as the storm progressed. At one point, more than 110,000 customers were without power, according to Nova Scotia Power.
As the storm approached Friday, apple growers and other farmers in the Annapolis Valley fretted over whether their unripened crops would survive Earl.
Fogarty said Saturday that the valley and northwestern Nova Scotia would see gusty winds, but not as strong was once thought.
RCMP said the road to the popular Peggy’s Cove tourist site near Halifax was closed to keep curious storm-watchers away from the dangerous, pounding surf.
Over the years, there have been a number of fatalities involving people who were swept off the rocks and into the churning seas.
There were also numerous flight cancellations at airports across the Maritimes.
— With files from Michael MacDonald in Dayspring, N.S.
