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At one point, Hurricane Earl
was a dangerous category 4 storm as is approached the Outer Banks
of North Carolina. It never did make a direct hit there or when
it grazed Cape Cod... There was going to be only one place where
this hurricane was going to actually make landfall and that was
going to be in Nova Scotia. Of course, I had to be there for
it and even though it was weakening due to colder waters further
north and wind shear, I knew it was still going to be a force
to be reckoned with and I liked the idea of being the only storm
chasers able to take a direct hit. I teamed up with Mark Robinson
and Brian Owsiak, both from The Weather Network.
After a long drive from Toronto
to Dartmouth, we made a brief stop in at the Canadian Hurricane
Center. It was clear that Earl was going to be a significant
storm when it eventually made it ashore the next morning. Passing
through Halifax, I stopped at the CBC and did a quick interview
for the national news and then we headed southwest where we thought
Earl would hit.
Early Saturday morning, we
headed out to Cape Sable Island and the town of Barraco. The
winds were very strong and increasing and the sea was getting
violent. The tide was low, so flooding was not an immediate concern,
but the track of Earl had shifted! We needed to get moving to
the northeast and fast. A slight jog to the right meant that
Earl was going to make landfall farther up the coast and we needed
to get ahead of it if we wanted to be on the right side of the
storm where the best wind and waves would be.
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