Earl losing power as it pushes towards Maritimes
Posted Sep 3, 2010 05:54:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Strong winds and driving rains are pummeling the outer banks of North Carolina this morning as Earl moves in to the neighbourhood.
The storm has weakened today, but it’s still packing top winds of more than 165 km an hour as it heads up the eastern seaboard.
Earl is still expected to arrive in the Maritimes on Saturday, but with the storm’s eye collapsing, it is losing some steam. However, meterologist Richard Zurawski says it’s also getting bigger.
“It’s got lots of wind left in it, lots of punch left in it, lots of rainfall, but it doesn’t have that pin-point deadliness that you would associate with a storm like Juan or Katrina,” he said.
Tropical storm watches are in effect for most of mainland Nova Scotia and now for Cape Breton and hurricane watches are in effect for Yarmouth, Shelburne, Queens and Digby.
It’s still not clear whether Earl will make landfall in western Nova Scotia or along New Brunswick’s Fundy shore, but with the storm’s nature changing, Zurawski says that doesn’t really matter.
“At this stage, becuase it’s starting to degenerate, that doesn’t really matter so much anymore,” he said. “If it moves into Shelburne as opposed to Digby, they’re both going to be getting rain and winds.”
Here in the Halifax area, Zurawski says we can expect winds of up to 90 km an hour and some rain.
“So you’re looking at a Danny, or a Bill, and you’re looking at rainfall amounts that are also comparable,” he said, referring to the two tropical storms that crossed Nova Scotia in August 2009. “I think we got about 50 or 60 millimetres of rain and we’re expecting anywhere between 50 and 80 millimetres of rain with Earl.”
Zurawski says it’s only about a one in 20 chance that the storm will arrive as a hurricane, meaning the Maritimes will be spared the major blow that forecasters feared. He says the major concern will be coastal damage and flooding.
