Deadly Hurricane Fiona has strengthened into a Category 4 storm as it barrels toward Canada’s Atlantic coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Officials in Canada’s Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are urging those in the storm’s path to be on high alert and prepare for the impact of the hurricane, which has already claimed the lives of at least five people as it moved through the Caribbean islands.
“The Air Force Hurricane Hunters have been investigating the major hurricane and have found that it remains powerful and very large,” the center said in an update this afternoon.
In a Friday afternoon briefing, Bob Robichaud, a warning preparedness meteorologist with the Canadian Hurricane Center, cautioned people not to focus on the hurricane’s track since its effects will be felt across a swath of eastern Canada.
Environment Canada says this includes much of Nova Scotia, P.E.I., southeastern New Brunswick, western and southwestern Newfoundland, and some parts of Quebec bordering the Gulf of St. Lawrence, reports CBC Canada.
The NHC reported that at 2:00 p.m. EDT, Fiona was 475 miles (770 kilometers) south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, with sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph), still moving toward the northeast at 35 mph (56 kph).
To explain the size of this massive storm, hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 115 miles (185 kilometers) from the center, and tropical-force winds extend outward up to 345 miles (555 kilometers) from the center. This means the storm is 690 miles in diameter, based on its tropical-force winds.
Robichaud said Fiona is bigger than Hurricane Juan, the 2003 storm that pummeled Nova Scotia. It’s similar in size to Hurricane Dorian, which hit Nova Scotia in 2019, but it’s stronger.
“It is certainly going to be a historic, extreme event for Atlantic Canada,” said Robichaud.