Atlantic Canada in the midst of three-day blast of heavy rain and powerful winds

HALIFAX — Strong winds and heavy rain continue to lash parts of Atlantic Canada this morning as a large, lumbering storm has stalled over the region.

At one point this morning, the storm had knocked out power to more than 12,000 Nova Scotia Power customers, most of them in the central and eastern areas of the province. There were some reports of minor road washouts but no real property damage. 

By 11 a.m. local time, more than 9,000 residents and businesses were still without electricity in an area stretching from Halifax east to Sydney in eastern Cape Breton. Small, sporadic outages were also being reported in P.E.I.

At Halifax’s Stanfield International Airport, a peak gust was recorded at 98 kilometres per hour at 1 a.m., and gusts reached 107 km/h at the mouth of Halifax harbour.

Meanwhile, peak gusts exceeding 100 km/h were reported in central Nova Scotia, along the province’s eastern shore and in Eskasoni, which is in central Cape Breton.

“It was certainly a wet, windy night across central Nova Scotia, and everything is now moving ever so slowly towards the east,” said Bob Robichaud, a senior meteorologist with Environment Canada in Halifax.

“We do expect more of this rainfall to continue over eastern Nova Scotia. I would expect that if there are going to be any impacts, it’s going to be within the next 24 to 36 hours in that part of the province.”

Rainfall totals have exceeded 50 millimetres in many communities in the Maritimes, but those numbers are expected to climb as the storm is forecast to linger over the region until late Wednesday and then hover over western Newfoundland into Thursday.

An assortment of rainfall and wind warnings remain in effect for southeastern New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, most of Nova Scotia, western Newfoundland, Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Quebec’s north shore.

Environment Canada has said another 100 to 150 millimetres of rain could fall across eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. 

Meanwhile, Robichaud says the forecast for southwestern Newfoundland has been updated with almost 300 mm of rain possible over the next two days.

“This thing is really pumping moisture from the Caribbean all the way up to the northern part of Quebec and Labrador,” he said in an interview.

“If (southwestern Newfoundland) gets amounts in the (250-300 millimetre) ballpark over a mountainous area, that water will get channelled down the mountain and you’re almost guaranteed to have some sort of flooding or washout issues.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 23, 2021. 

— By Michael MacDonald in Halifax

The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version said more than 120,000 customers were without power in Nova Scotia.