On Wednesday morning, Fiona was a Category 4 hurricane off the eastern Caribbean, with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph).
At the 8:00 a.m. EDT advisory, the National Hurricane Center put a strengthening Fiona 700 miles (1,125 kilometers ) southwest of Bermuda, moving north at 8 mph (13 kph).
After devastating Puerto Rico, then lashing the Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos Islands, Fiona is forecast to squeeze past Bermuda later this week as it continues its relentless path toward Atlantic Canada.
The storm has been blamed for directly causing at least four deaths in its march through the Caribbean, where winds and torrential rain in Puerto Rico left a majority of people on the U.S. territory without power or running water.
Hundreds of thousands of people scraped mud out of their homes following what authorities described as “historic” flooding.
According to CBC Canada, the latest projections by the National Hurricane Center have the storm arriving in Atlantic Canada on Friday evening as a Category 3 hurricane.
A track near Cape Breton and into the Gulf of St. Lawrence looks most likely at this point, however the “cone of uncertainty” – the area where the storm could hit – remains quite large as we are still a few days out.
It is all but certain that Fiona’s track to the north will have an impact on the region, though. Prolonged heavy rainfall and the potential for flooding is likely along and left of the track.
It is likely that Fiona will approach Bermuda late Thursday or Friday and then Canada’s Atlantic provinces on Saturday.
