Fiona makes landfall in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotians are waking up to wind, downed trees and power lines, along with a lot of debris.

Fiona made landfall on the Canso Peninsula near Hart Island and Guysborough early Saturday.

A wind warning remains in effect for Halifax as of 11 a.m. The hurricane and rain warnings have ended.

CityNews meteorologist Denise Andreacchi says the now post-tropical storm is slowly moving over the Maritimes and we'll still be feeling her effects for hours; however, the rain has now tapered off.

“The rain has lightened up a little bit in Halifax, but the winds are still quite strong and will continue for the next three to four hours,” she told CityNews 95.7 during a special Saturday morning broadcast at around 7:30 a.m. 

The Halifax area has already experienced several hours of wind gusts of over 100 km/h.

“And we're going to continue to see this throughout the day today with these winds exceeding gusts at times of 100 km/h,” Andreacchi explained.

Listen to Denise Andreacch

If you're reading this by lamp light, you're one of the lucky ones.

As of 7 a.m., over 415,000 Nova Scotia Power customers throughout the province have no electricity.

At a media briefing Friday afternoon, the utility's storm lead said his staff were prepared for a Dorian-level event, which also knocked out power for around the same number of customers just over three years ago.

Matt Drover said over 800 staff were in the field ready to respond to outages, with more on standby, but high winds are likely hampering their response.

“When the winds get above 80 [km/h], it will be buckets down,” he stated yesterday. “We can still get out and do assessments of what the damage may be, but we won't actually be able to get buckets up into the air until the winds get below 80.”

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Andreacchi said the strongest winds will continue in the Halifax area until around lunch time.

“But winds are still going to be gusting throughout the day and night, 50 to 60 km/h gusts, so it's going to get better, but it really won't be until tomorrow until it's likely safe.”

“Tomorrow couldn't be a better day weather-wise for cleanup,” she added. “It's going to be quiet tomorrow, the winds are going to settle down and we're going to have clear skies.”

And it looks like Fiona is a record breaker.

In a tweet, the CHC says the unofficial recorded pressure at Hart Island, in the Canso area, registered 931.6 mb, which would make it the lowest pressured land falling storm on record in Canada.

However, the centre says it has to wait for the National Hurricane Center to make it official.

In its early Saturday morning update, the centre said Fiona is expected to pass through Cape Breton in the morning, and then reach the Quebec Lower North Shore and Southeastern Labrador by late evening.

Hurricane force wind gusts have already been recorded over eastern mainland Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, Iles-de-la-Madeleine, and southwestern Newfoundland, and tropical storm force winds will spread into eastern Quebec, and southeastern Labrador Saturday.

Officials are asking Nova Scotians to avoid unnecessary travel. Halifax Transit service is suspended until further notice and both the MacKay and Macdonald bridges are closed Saturday morning.

You can find a list of closures and cancellations here.

With files from Canadian Press