Hurricane Earl is moving west, but high winds and heavy rain are still on the way for Halifax on Saturday morning.
“It would give Halifax some decent winds, gusting into the 80 to 90 km/h range,” said Chris Fogarty with the Canadian Hurricane Centre in Dartmouth on Thursday.
Earl is still on schedule to hit Nova Scotia at around 9 a.m. on Saturday, but Fogarty stressed there is a six-hour margin of error.
“The intensity of the storm could be weakening a little more quickly than earlier thought, but we’re still looking at maximum winds of 130 km/h when it makes landfall in Yarmouth, or maybe even up into New Brunswick,” Fogarty said.
Most of the rain will fall in New Brunswick, but Halifax will get heavy downpours for a few hours. High winds will kick it up for about four hours, but it will be windy for about 12 hours.
A tropical storm was issued for Halifax by Environment Canada just before 3 p.m. on Thursday.
“I don’t see the rainfall lasting particularly long, but it will likely come down quite heavily,” he said.
Two cruise ships canceled their visit to Halifax because of Earl, but there has been no impact to cargo ships so far.
Airline passengers were warned on Thursday there may be delays and cancellations at Halifax Stanfield International Airport, and to check regularly about their flights.
