Bomb cyclone may unleash destructive winds, soaking rain in Maritimes

Bomb cyclone may unleash destructive winds, soaking rain in Maritimes

A storm that underwent bombogenesis and peaked over New England will still pack a punch in terms if strong winds, heavy rain and rough seas over the Maritime Provinces of Canada into Thursday night.

Winds can be strong enough from the east and southeast to knock over trees and break large tree limbs in Nova Scotia, central and southeastern New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

Gusts are forecast to range from 70 to 90 km/h with an AccuWeather StormMax™ of 129 km/h. Winds this strong can lead to sporadic power outages.

A general 25 to 75 millimeters of rain is forecast with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 100 millimeters predicted.

"Since the bulk of this rain is likely to fall in 12 hours, it is enough to trigger isolated incidents of flash and urban flooding," according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson.

Where leaves have fallen or will be knocked down by the storm and accumulate on the roads, slick travel conditions can occur and blocked storm drains may lead to street flooding.

Commuters should expect a stormy day on Thursday in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; and St. John, Fredericton and Moncton, New Brunswick, as well as locations far inland including Montreal and Quebec City.

While the period of strong easterly to southeasterly winds will be brief, seas will quickly build. Conditions will be dangerous for small craft through Thursday night. Large waves will pound the east- and southeast-facing coastal areas with considerable overwash on roads along the immediate shoreline.

"Although the forward speed of the storm will slow substantially, rain and gusty winds will expand northward during Thursday night and Friday," Anderson said.

"However, since the storm will have matured already, the storm will be much less severe and more typical of average for this time of the year in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as eastern Quebec," he added.

Unsettled conditions with chilly winds and showers are forecast to linger over the Maritimes and southern Quebec to end the week.

Some wet snow is likely to fall over the sparsely populated Laurentian Mountains in central and eastern Quebec. Several centimeters may fall over the higher terrain from the storm.

The weather is forecast to improve from southwest to northeast across southeastern Canada this weekend.

Download the free AccuWeather app to see the latest forecast for your region. Keep checking back for updates on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.