Storm Nicole expected to bring rain and wind to Atlantic Canada this weekend

HALIFAX -

Environment Canada says a tropical storm set to make landfall in Florida late Wednesday -- possibly as a Category 1 hurricane -- is expected to bring a fall storm over the East Coast this weekend.

Meteorologist Bob Robichaud says he expects that on Saturday, tropical storm Nicole will bring heavy rain to New Brunswick and major wind gusts in Nova Scotia. He said in an interview Wednesday that because Nicole is being closely followed by a winter storm system, Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec's Cote-Nord region may see snow or freezing rain.

"This other weather system is crossing over the Great Lakes, and this second system is going to pick up whatever is left of Nicole as it moves over the mid-Atlantic states, and the two (storms) are going to combine to give those rainy and windy conditions," Robichaud said.

It's too early, he added, to know which of the two storms will be the dominant force of the weather system by the time it hits Atlantic Canada.

"But no matter how you look at this, this is not going to be another Fiona-type system as we had in September," Robichaud said, referring to the post-tropical storm that devastated parts of Atlantic Canada. Fiona came with wind speeds of more than 175 kilometres per hour, caused widespread power outages and destroyed about 100 homes in Newfoundland.

Nicole's impact on the region will feel like a more typical fall storm, he said.

"When you have an approaching storm that has a name -- especially after a storm like Fiona -- there is some anxiety. But this is going to be nowhere near what we saw with Fiona."

Robichaud said, however, that power outages over the weekend are still possible. Outages are most likely to occur along the eastern shore of Nova Scotia and in Cape Breton, where high winds are expected, he added.

He also noted that outages caused by downed trees are more likely to happen in areas hit hard by Fiona, because the surviving trees may have been weakened by the hurricane-force winds.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2022.

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.