The Maritime provinces have been on the alert for several hours and are preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Fiona which could hit the coasts as early as Friday evening, a situation which should also become more and more frequent due to the changes climate, according to an expert. The weather system continued to progress throughout the day on Friday, driven by winds of 200 km / h.
The gusts, however, hit Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and the Magdalen Islands at 140 or 150 km / h. *Follow our special coverage of the arrival of Hurricane Fiona on Canadian shores with our journalists in Gaspésie, Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Halifax* “It is a very powerful category 3 hurricane that is fed by waters much warmer than what we have observed in the last decades […], which gives more energy to the hurricane” , explained Alain Bourque, general manager of Ouranos, in an interview with LCN on Friday.
This warming of the waters observed for several years would explain the multiplication of these phenomena along the Canadian coasts, according to the expert. “A hurricane, in order to fully develop, requires water temperatures of at least 26 degrees Celsius,” said Bourque, adding that the temperature of tropical waters is a few degrees higher. “The upper winds are not super favorable, so we can assume that the same hurricane that occurs 30 years ago would be much less powerful,” he added. Places like the Magdalen Islands should therefore be the target of such events more and more frequently, and not only be hit by remnants of hurricanes, as during Hurricane Dorian in 2019.
“The hurricanes will be able to travel much further unlike what they did before,” said Mr. Bourque. These phenomena should, however, be less present in tropical regions due to climate change, but those that will still exist will be much more powerful. “Climate changes influence a phenomenon that is natural at the base […] except that the frequency, duration, intensity and route change,” summarized the specialist.