A Very Looooong Weekend!

With the long weekend approaching things are not looking good for Atlantic Canada. The image above is the latest thermal satellite imagery of Hurricane Earl from the Canadian Hurricane Centre. Earl is continuing to turn north as a powerful category 3 hurricane. While it is still too early for the CHC to start issuing warnings for coastal communities in Canada, the National Hurricane Center has been busy doing just that south of the border for the shores of North Carolina and Virginia north toward Maryland and Delaware.

So where will Earl make landfall? You have to take the above image with a grain of salt as we are still days away but the CHC is very concerned that Earl will make a direct hit with Nova Scotia on Saturday. The above image is a composite of various hurricane models and the “cone of uncertainty” has this cyclone landing anywhere from Maine to eastern Nova Scotia as a category 1 hurricane with winds in excess of 119 km/h. Earl will quickly weaken over land but could still affect P.E.I. as a tropical storm or depression with wind speeds ranging from 50-100km/h before bringing heavy rain and high winds to Labrador and western Newfoundland. Why so powerful? You can thank warmer than normal sea surface temperatures around Nova Scotia. Although the water there is no longer warm enough to favour storm development (cooler than 26.5 degrees), it's still warm enough for this storm to maintain hurricane strength for some time.

When does Earl make landfall? That’s another tricky question to answer at the moment as we’re not 100% sure as to where he’ll land. It all depends on where Earl actually lands but, assuming he does strike Nova Scotia, the NHC expects Earl to make landfall early Saturday morning. While there is still some uncertainty regarding the track of this storm, I think we can be certain that this could be a very looong weekend for folks living in Atlantic Canada.