Historic flooding hits Nova Scotia amid torrential downpours

Nova Scotia is reeling from a historic flooding event after significant rainfall swept over the provincethis weekend.

The heaviest rain fell across an area that stretches from LiverpoolinQueens Countyon the South Shore, through LunenburgCounty, then across to northwest Halifax County and into HantsCounty.

Preliminarynumbers showed rainfall totals in this area ranging from 100-250+ millimetresof rain as of 10a.m. AT Sunday.

Some folks in these areas, especially near Bedford, Lower Sackville and Windsor, picked up much of that rain in just fiveto sevenhours.

As a result, rivers and streams were overflowing and numerous road washouts are being reported by the Department of Public Works.

Rainy weekend

The heavy rainfall ended over western areas of Nova Scotiaas of 11 a.m. Saturday, with just a few additional showers and downpours possible in theafternoon and evening.

Therain continued over eastern areasthroughout the day with widespread additional amounts in the 20 to 50-millimetrerange and 50 to 100 millimetresor morepossible locally, due to more downpours and thunderstorms in this tropical setup.

The rain inthe east was expected to taper off in the evening and overnight.

'We're working through it,' N.S. mayor says amid heavy rain and flooding

1 year ago

Duration 1:06

Windsor and West Hants Municipality Mayor Abraham Zebian describes the torrential rain that hit Nova Scotia overnight and led to an evacuation order for people living near the St. Croix River system.

Past events

The most recent similar event occurred in Ingonish, Victoria County, in November 2021, when a rain and wind storm washed out several roads and bridges.

Before that, on Thanksgiving Day in2014, Sydney experienced serious flooding,which forced dozens of homes to be evacuated.

But this appears to be the heaviestrainfall event to hit the Halifax area since Hurricane Beth in 1971.

That storm dropped 266 millimetres of rainat the Halifax airport and 238 millimetresat Shearwater.