It was a dynamic day for weather in the Maritimes as a powerful storm swept a weather front across the region Tuesday morning.

Most noticeable were the winds. High and gusty they created power outages in all three provinces as well as delays in ferry and bridge transportation services. 

Here are the strongest recorded gusts for each province include as of 2 p.m.:

 

Nova Scotia:

St. Paul Island WSW 121 km/h

Sydney Airport W 101 km/h

Grand Etang W 100 km/h

North Mountain W 97 km/h

Brier Island WNW 95 km/h

 

New Brunswick:

Moncton Airport WSW 86 km/h

Bathurst Airport WNW 84 km/h

Miscou Island WNW 83 km/h

Bouctouche WSW 76 km/h

Fredericton Area W 74 km/h

 

Prince Edward Island:

North Cape WSW 98 km/h

Charlottetown Airport WNW 90 km/h

St. Peters WSW 88 km/h

Summerside W 77 km/h

Harrington AAFC W 77 km/h

 

Cold air sweeping in aloft behind the passage of the front has also led to some interesting weather phenomena on the day. In Anagance N.B., Catherine Hamilton reported and took picture of graupel which is commonly known as snow pellets or soft hair. Graupel develop when falling snow crystals come into contact with supercooled water droplets (droplets with a temperature below freezing but still in a liquid state) which near instantly freeze on the crystal producing an ice or hailstone-looking object.

The cold air also may have triggered the development of some cold-air funnel clouds in the vicinity of the Northumberland Strait Tuesday morning. These types of funnel clouds occur when the cold air overruns a layer of warmer, moist air triggering convection or upward rising air. As that convection occurs, winds that change direction with height start it spinning and can result in the development of the funnel cloud. These types of funnel clouds are often short-lived and are much weaker than those produced by a supercell thunderstorm. Should they touch down to the ground or water though (and many don’t) they are a tornado or waterspout. This particular funnel cloud was captured by Twitter user @cr_geier in the vicinity of River John, N.S. Tuesday morning. It lasted about 15 seconds before dissipating.