Laura only expected to have minor influence on Nova Scotia

It looks like Halifax will largely escape Laura.

The latest predicted track has the storm staying south of Nova Scotia.

In a Friday morning interview, the Canadian Hurricane Centre's Bob Robichaud said earlier models indicated Laura's moisture could be picked up by another system from the Great Lakes that will move into Nova Scotia this weekend.

“It looks like now, any influence is going to be really, really minor, so we're not expecting a whole lot from Laura right now,” he told NEWS 95.7's The Rick Howe Show.

“Any kind of influence on the rainfall would be over southwestern parts of the province,” he added.

With the centre staying well offshore, Robichaud doesn't believe wind will be much of a factor either.

This is the second time in the 2020 season we've avoided a tropical system after earlier models had us potentially in the crosshairs.

In early August, Halifax was in the cone of the possible track for Hurricane Isaias, but that storm ended up swinging to the west.

Earlier this month, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) updated its forecast for this year's Atlantic hurricane season, saying it now expects it to be “extremely active.”

Robichaud said by this date last year, there had only been five named storms. 

One of those, Dorian, hit Halifax on Saturday, Sept. 7, bringing heavy rain, strong winds and storm surge. It downed large trees throughout the municipality, damaged the Halifax waterfront, ripped a roof from a south end apartment building, toppled a construction crane and knocked out electricity to over 400,000 Nova Scotia Power customers.

There have already been 13 named storms in 2020, and Robichaud said we're just entering the height of the season.

“As we get into the core of hurricane season, which is late August, into September and early October, we see systems develop off the coast of Africa, those tend to be some of our stronger storms,” he explained.

“As we get into that part of hurricane season, we still really have, climatologically-speaking, about 65 per cent of our hurricane activity yet to come,” he added.

2005 was the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record. There were so many tropical systems that meteorologists ran out of names and had to resort to the Greek alphabet. 

Robichaud said we were fortunate that none of them had a significant impact on Atlantic Canada, but the more storms we have in 2020, the higher the odds are that one could come our way.

He said it's a good idea to start preparing now in case that happens.