HALIFAX —The Cape Breton Regional Municipality has declared a state of emergency as post-tropical storm Fiona—one of the strongest storms to ever strike Canada’s East Coast—continues to lash the island.
Fiona was churning out hurricane-force winds when it made landfall at 7 a.m. at the eastern edge of mainland Nova Scotia, near of Canso.
The Canadian Hurricane Centre in Dartmouth, N.S., says Fiona set a record for the lowest-ever barometric pressure for a tropical storm making landfall in Canada. The unofficial recorded pressure at Hart Island was 931.6 millibars, a measure of the storm’s strength.
The centre says widespread gusts between 90 and 120 kilometres per hour have been reported over Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Iles-de-la-Madeleine and southwestern Newfoundland, with a peak gust reaching 161 km/h over Beaver Island, N.S….