Looks Like We'll Be Talking About Tropical Threats For Awhile. Fiona To Fade But Ian A Big New Issue

The view of storm damage from Fiona from the offices of 
the Wreckhouse Press in Newfoundland. 

 As expected, Hurricane Fiona, while in transition to a non-tropical powerhouse of a storm, slammed into eastern Nova Scotia overnight.  

Its central pressure at landfall was estimated to be at 932 millibars, which would probably make it the most intense storm in Canadian history.

Reports were only just starting to trickle out of the Canada Fiona zone early this morning as I wrote this, so we don't have all the details yet.  Winds were still howling up there at dawn.  

About 410,000 people in Nova Scotia were without power this morning. I know there are lots of downed trees, coastal flooding, inland flooding, so yeah, it's a mess in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and nearby areas. Video emerging from Nova Scotia documents downed trees everywhere. 

Somebody in Nova Scotia REALLY didn't
want their trampoline to blow
away in Storm Fiona.

I saw a report out of Sydney, Nova Scotia around dawn local time that showed winds there at 61 mph gusting to 88 mph.  Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island police tweeted, "Conditions are like nothing we've ever seen. We are logging reports of downed trees and wires but will only be responding to emergency calls." 

The Wreckhouse Press in Newfoundland tweeted a photo showing a house appearing to be falling into a chaotic, stormy Atlantic Ocean. 

The storm will continue on into Labrador today and then head toward southwestern Greenland. 

TROPICAL STORM IAN

The next biggy that will be in the news is Tropical Storm Ian. As expected, its forecast path has been narrowed down slightly, and Florida seems to be the target, at least for now. 

As of this morning, Ian was still a fairly weak tropical storm southeast of Jamaica.

However, conditions have become favorable for strengthening as it moves northwestward through the Caribbean.

Ian is expected to become a hurricane by the time it reaches the Cayman Islands on Monday, and it will be threatening western Cuba by early Tuesday.

From there, Ian becomes a threat to the United States. I think places like Houston and New Orleans can  mostly breath a sigh of relief, as Ian doesn't seem like it wants to go that far west in the Gulf of Mexico.

Chances are, Ian will aim for Florida.  It won't get near there until Wednesday. Since there's several days to go, the forecast on exactly where Ian might hit are fuzzy.  Honestly, it could be anywhere between Miami and Pensacola, or even to the left or right of this range. 

Forecasters are worried that Ian could be a powerful hurricane, perhaps Category 3 or higher, as it nears Florida next week. 

A worst case scenario would be Ian as a major hurricane directly entering Tampa Bay, or going by it just to the west.  That would push huge amounts of water further into the bay, badly flooding a huge expanse of low lying, heavily populated land. 

Of course, we don't know whether anything like that will happen.  It's just a sign that people in the possible cross hairs of Ian ought to be starting to get their hurricane plans in gear.   

This isn't scientific, but it seems to me that in the past few decades tropical storms and hurricanes that begin with the letter "I" seem to end up being particularly nasty. Ida last year. Irma in 2017. Also, Ike in 2008, Ivan in 2004, and who in Vermont can forget Irene in 2011?

There's a couple of other tropical storms spinning way out in the Atlantic Ocean. They are Gaston, not far from the Azores and Hermine, a little off the west coast of Africa.  Neither storm looks like a big threat, and neither will get particularly strong.