Environment Canada discusses expected meteorological impacts of Hurricane Ernesto – August 16, 2024

br B hello my name is Brandon clim and I'll be moderating today's media availability with regards to the expected meteorological impacts of her Ernesto I would like to begin by acknowledging that I am coming to you today from the unseated Algin territory I'd like to raise a few points before we begin uh the event will begin with a briefing from Mr Bob risho environment and climate change cada's warning preparedness meteorologist presentation will occur in English first and followed by presentation in French and then we will move to a question period to be called upon uh we ask that you make sure to identify your name and your media Outlet uh in your Zoom name and to also keep it to one question and one followup you may use the middle bar between the presentation and the presenter to adjust the size of both screens in the zoom interface The Briefing is for attribution and can be recorded B the floor is yours thank you Brandon good afternoon everyone uh welcome to this uh relatively short briefing uh update on Hurricane arnesto um as we head into this uh this weekend so next slide please so the latest on uh the storm as of been noon uh Atlantic time today it's still 1600 kilometers to the south south west of hellofax uh it uh it has an intensity of 155 kilometers per hour uh it's been having some struggles in intensifying over the last couple of days it has intensified a little bit uh but due to some uh drier air and some wind shear it hasn't uh yet lived up to uh what we thought it would uh so far but there is still some uh opportunity for strengthening uh in the next few days current motion is North Northeast at about 22 kilm hour uh so next slide so looking at the uh the track of the storm over the coming days uh we expect it to uh uh approach Bermuda here in the next uh 12 to 24 hours some of the impacts could be felt actually starting today into tomorrow uh for that uh for that Island uh and then then the the storm is expected to continue uh on its northeasterly uh track it it's expected to slow down a little bit but then by later in the weekend it should pick up uh speed again um as it moves over some colder water into the Canadian Hurricane Center response Zone and we expect that the storm is going to track either very close to the Avalon Peninsula uh of Newan lavador or just offshore and that would be um Monday night into Tuesday at this time it looks like the center of the storm will pass far enough to the South that it won't have a Major Impact uh on the Maritime Provinces so next slide please so just taking a closer look at the storm a track relative to new from land and Labrador because that's where it's actually coming closer to land um we do the the the official forecast right now is for the center to stay offshore but there's still a possibility of landfalling Eastern um FL lavador the the island portion at least uh regardless of where the center actually goes what we expect the storm to look like by the time it passes there is that the heaviest rain is going to be on the leftand side of the track and the strongest winds are going to be on the right hand side so even if the storm does actually make landfall in uh say the eastern part of the Avalon Peninsula the strongest winds are still expected to be uh offshore so we're still expecting some wind some rain uh but it it uh at least given the current track it looks like we might be escaping the worst case scenario in terms of wind and rain so next slide please so what might be the more the the the bigger problem that we might face is some large waves uh so we are expecting waves that could get up to 5 to 10 meters in uh Peak wave height uh and that would be into the overnight um uh time frame Monday into Tuesday especially areas to the east of The Bean Peninsula especially areas that are open to the South and Southwest facing Coast ones so that would be necessarily that part of new atanta Labrador and it would be in the overnight hour so uh there's less likely to be people uh watching the way but that is a certainly a concern that we have is for people getting too close to the shore when we have these systems going through so there could be some Coastal impacts due to waves uh we'll have more details on that over the course of the weekend as the storm gets closer so next slide so just uh some key messages at this point uh even though it's still early for Atlantic Canada uh storm continues to move in a North northeasterly Direction and will pass very close to Bermuda it's expected to make a sharper turn in the coming days and pass well south of the Maritime Provinces on Monday and then moving uh very close to the Southeastern tip of the LA the U aalon peninsula of New Finland and labador um and and this is why we're having this briefing is just as we're going into this uh weekend uh just to that people should pay close attention to the evolution of the storm uh as we get more details on all the the different hazards so next slide please so there's a very uh variety of ways to get that information of course our website canada.ca um uh slwe we get all your information there our various social media channels and of course our weather can app which also has all the latest uh Hurricane Center information uh on there uh so with that uh we'll go to next slide please [Music] k k for [Music] um problem the the um for Canada no no media lesto so back to you Brandon thank you very much uh Bob we will now turn to the period the question period um so so we'll now begin the question period please note that this will be the only opportunity for reporters to connect with uh with our experts on this topic today to ask your question via Zoom please use the hand raising function or by phone by pressing star 9 followed by star 62 unmute yourself so our first question comes to us from uh Michael McDonald please uh identify your media Outlet please go ahead hi it's uh Mike McDonald at the Canadian press Bob I'm wondering if you could talk to us about the possibility of flooding and storm surge in Eastern newfinland right there there certainly is a possibility of the storm surge if we look at where the the storm is actually going in terms of the of the track and the and more importantly the track uh area at this time uh there's still a possibility that the storm could actually track over Eastern parts of Newland even though the current track the actual track shows it offshore the potential track area still has that portion of uh extreme Eastern new on it that would be kind of the the scenario that would um have the greatest probability of uh producing storm surge in that area otherwise the winds would be offshore that would diminish that risk but we're still going to see some large waves approaching the coast uh in the overnight hours of Monday into Tuesday so that's one of the reasons why we're asking people to just pay pay attention to how the track evolves over the next few days that will give us an indication as to whether we're looking at uh both a storm surge and large wave event or just uh a large wave event so the track will be important to uh to monitor over the next few days right just one more question if that's all right yep go ahead um I'm wondering if you could talk to us about the fact that we're still a long way from the peak of Atlantic hurricane uh season uh in a year that's been uh expected to be a particularly active one yeah we've already seen some uh record-breaking storms here this year uh with the barrel especially back in uh in June and early July um everything that we're looking at still indicates that we're going to see a a very active season uh even though they're not uh they're know not necessarily any area other than um Ernesto that we're watching right now uh conditions are still very favorable for storm development as we head into uh the latter part of August and September which is uh basically the peak month of hurricane season so uh again we're we're up to uh the E storm uh with uh by the looks of it a lot more to come uh as we head into the peak here for sure thank you yeah okay [Music] West for [Music] EX [Music] at if you have a question please use the hand raising function [Music] [Music] [Music] w for [Music] uh Norwest [Music] on [Music] I'm just for okay meru um [Music] please use the hand raising function if you have a question we have a another question from Luca Caruso Morrow from CTB please go ahead we can't hear you yet Luka we still can't hear you hello hello hello there we go now we go ahead um thank you for this uh update I'm wondering if there's anything else that you can say about the expected effects of these high winds that we're expecting in Newland and if there's any advice that you can give to people there who are wondering you know how they can plan to protect their home homes their property and uh how they should act on uh the day that we're expecting the storm to arrive thank you sure the the kind of the the Saving Grace right now is that it looks like the core of the strongest winds associated with the Ernesto should remain offshore given the track that we're expecting now uh the strongest winds will probably remain offshore so what we're looking at are are winds that um that are not that unusual for that part of Canada um it does create a bit of a of complication to get these winds at this time of year when there's still leaves on the trees and such um but that is a pretty hardened area that uh has seen those kind of winds uh before um again that's why we're saying that it's going to be so important to monitor the progress of the system over uh the weekend to make sure that track doesn't start to Edge bit further towards the West if it stays where it is now we expect the really stronger winds uh any kind of damaging winds to stay offshore um so the main thing right now given that we're still several days uh before the storm arrives the main thing right now is to just to monitor the forecast over the course of the weekend on all our various uh uh sites and different platforms no further questions thank you very much okay thank you thank you very much for those questions uh we have no further questions at this time so we would invite uh reporters uh who would like to get a oops sorry about that um we would like to invite reporters um to contact media at E.G c.ca if you would like a copy of the PowerPoint slide from today's presentation [Music] and this concludes today's uh media availability thank you very much