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Dangerous Storm Tracks Toward Atlantic Canada, Coast Readies for Wind, Rain

Posted on: Friday, 2 November 2007, 15:00 CDT

By THE CANADIAN PRESS

DARTMOUTH, N.S. - Forecasters say a hurricane that devastated parts of the Caribbean before beginning its track toward Atlantic Canada will bring dangerous winds, rain and surf.

Peter Bowyer of the Hurricane Centre in Dartmouth, N.S., says Hurricane Noel will likely be downgraded to a post-tropical storm by the time it reaches the southern tip of Nova Scotia late Saturday night.

But he says the "dangerous fall storm" that's quickly barrelling north will lash coastal regions with wind gusts of up to 130 km-h.

Bowyer says it's unlikely the system will regain its hurricane status as it moves into colder waters in the North Atlantic.

He says this storm is different from those that typically hit the area in the fall because of its tropical origins, which gives it a little more strength.

Noel's sustained winds had increased to 129 km-h as it moved away from the Bahamas late Thursday making it a category 1 hurricane.

All computer models remain in agreement that the storm track will take it right over Nova Scotia, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and toward the Labrador Sea this weekend.

It's expected parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick will see up to 70 millimetres of rain, while most of mainland Nova Scotia could see wind gusts of up to 100 km-h.

Noel drenched the Bahamas and Cuba on Thursday, while rescue workers in the Dominican Republic headed out in boats and helicopters to reach dozens of communities isolated by floods and mudslides.

Rescuers in Hispaniola, the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, found a rising toll of death and damage: at least 73 dead in the Dominican Republic and 40 in Haiti, where the majority of bodies were found in and around the capital of Port-au-Prince. One person was killed in Jamaica and one man died in the Bahamas.

More than three days of heavy rain caused an estimated $30 million in damages to the Dominican Republic's rice, plantain and cacao plantations.

A tropical storm warning and watch for parts of southeastern Florida were cancelled and officials said coastal communities from the Georgia border south to Miami were largely spared major damage.

Source: Canadian Press

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