Weather worries continue with more Maritime rain in the forecast

A pedestrian shields herself from the rain with an umbrella while walking downtown in Halifax on Monday, October 30, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese

A thunderstorm with heavy rain and lightning covered much of Cape Breton on Sunday causing some flooding and power outages.

“The skies just clouded over so fast and so quick. The wind came up and we just got things put away on the deck in time before torrential down pours and thunder and lightning like I’ve never seen before,” said Tracey Hilliard, Albert Bridge, N.S. resident.

Hilliard spent 14 days without power after Hurricane Fiona, and is concerned with the number of extreme weather events in the Maritimes since the hurricane.

“It's becoming more consistent now and more regular and it just makes me a little more nervous of what's to come, especially after Fiona last September,” said Hilliard.

Halifax was once again was hit hard on the weekend, with some streets and basements left flooded.

Highway 215 in South Maitland is closed for the second time this summer.

“On Friday we got it open, and less than 24 hours later when we got 70mm of rain, it got closed,” said John A. Macdonald, Hants East PC MLA.

It's unclear when the road will reopen, but one thing that is clear, is the costs that come with these storms.

“20 years ago we talked one in a thousand storms, which is what we classified the storm a couple weeks ago, but I don't think they're going to be one in a thousand anymore. The infrastructure is going to have to change to be able to deal with it,” said Macdonald.

Experts say Maritimers need to be prepared for more wild weather, especially hurricanes.

“If you got warmer waters there's less likelihood that the storm will have weakened as it moves into our area. Our sea levels are rising, so the storm surges and coastal erosion are impacting our shoreline more significantly and that's only going to get worse,” said Jim Abraham, a retired meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada.

According to a new poll by Nanos Research, the majority of Canadians blame climate change for our recent weather events.

“One thing that surprised me is people recognized that climate change is the cause of a lot of these fires and severe weather events, but they're cross pressured in trying to pay the bills. It's like two competing pressures. They want to fight climate change, but at the same time they don't think this is a good time to introduce carbon taxes,” said Nik Nanos, founder & chief data scientist for Nanos Research.

With more wet weather on the way this week, Maritimers can only wait and wonder what's next weather wise.

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