United States

Arthur Likely to Impact Nova Scotia by Saturday

July 2, 2014; 1:57 PM ET

Keeping a close eye on Arthur as it has started its northward movement off the east coast of Florida.

There is excellent consensus among forecasters and modeling in terms of the track over the next 36 to 48 hours as Arthur will likely become a hurricane and track over or just east of the Outer Banks of North Carolina Thursday night/early Friday.

Latest computer model and forecast track consensus....

After that, computer modeling diverges a bit with some models taking the center of Arthur up into central or eastern Nova Scotia on Saturday, while some others keep the center just offshore.

Based on what I have been looking at, I favor a track taking Arthur up into eastern Nova Scotia on Saturday with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force wind gusts, especially east of the track in near the coast. North and west of the track, there will be much less wind, but more rainfall.

This could be the type of storm that produces some tree damage and minor flooding, along with power outages.

As usual, the heaviest rainfall will shift to the north and west side of the storm and that could impact western Nova Scotia and PEI. Assuming the track holds, rainfall amounts could average anywhere between 25 and 75 mm. The fast, forward speed of the storm will limit the amount of time that the heaviest rain falls.

Below are the latest GFS and ECMWF model rainfall forecasts in inches from Friday night through Saturday night over Atlantic Canada....

Keep in mind, we are still a few days away and the track can still shift, but we should have good confidence in the track up toward Nova Scotia by tomorrow as the Arthur begins to interact with the stronger steering winds aloft.

I will have another update Thursday.

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com