Wind, rain storm on the way to Nova Scotia

With high winds and rain expected to hit the province, Nova Scotia Power has announced it will activate its Emergency Operations Centre on Monday morning at 9 a.m.  

“We’ve been monitoring the weather forecasts for the last number of days and have made the decision to open the Emergency Operation Centre to coordinate our storm response,” said Matt Drover, Nova Scotia Power spokesman, in a release Sunday. “Based on those forecasts we are expecting something very similar to last Monday, with rain and high winds for long durations across much of the province.” 

Saltwire weather specialist Allister Aalders said the nasty weather is from a low-pressure system that originated in the Gulf of Mexico.

“It’s going to travel up the U.S. eastern seaboard, and similar to last Monday, it’s going to track well to our north putting us on the windy, mild side of the system and also the wet side,” said Aalders. “On Monday morning, we’ll start to see widespread periods of steadier rain, on and off bands of rain and as we go through the afternoon and evening that rain will start to move eastward … to eastern mainland Nova Scotia and Cape Breton.”

There will also be strong south and southeast winds, forecast to peak during Monday evening, with winds gusting between 70 and 90 kilometres per hour province-wide and as high as 110 km/h in more exposed areas.

“Overnight Monday night and into morning, for the most part things will start to ease,” Aalders said. “But we’re heading into a situation where there’s going to be a lot of blocking around us in the atmosphere, so there will be further bands of rain that get funneled towards Nova Scotia on Tuesday and Wednesday, particularly over the eastern half of the province.”

A special weather statement was issued from Environment Canada. 

“Strong winds and rain expected,” says the statement. 

It said maximum wind gusts will be southerly near 100 km/h, except 120 km/h or higher from Margaree Harbour to Bay St. Lawrence. Rainfall amounts are expected to be 50 to 70 mm, with potentially higher amounts locally. 

“A large area of rain will accompany the strong winds and will spread across the province Sunday night and Monday morning. Rainfall rates will likely peak Monday night. Loose outdoor items should be secured and utility outages are possible. Large waves and pounding surf, and storm surge, will produce higher than normal water levels along the Atlantic coast near high tide at midnight Monday night and again near noon on Tuesday.” 

Working in concert with the province’s Emergency Management Office, NSP will put crews in position across the province.  

“High winds can cause trees to come into contact with power lines damaging equipment and causing power outages,” said Drover. “They can also slow restoration efforts depending on the extent of the damage they cause, and force crews to stand down when winds reach 80 kilometres per hour, as it isn’t safe to be up in the buckets.” 

Anyone who loses power should call 1-877-428-6004 for an estimated restoration time. 

NSP says the average number of hours of wind gusts over 80 kilometres per hour in the last five years is up 54 per cent from the five years before that.