What Are the `Suetes`?

In the local Acadian French dialect, the notoriously strong southeasterly winds that periodically rack western Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, are known as the `Suetes.` These are highly localized winds that whip down the western slope of the Cape Breton Highland, often ahead of big coastal storms. Inversion layers seem to be key to maximizing the impact of these winds, which are at their worst (sometimes hurricane speed) near the Gulf of Saint Lawrence shore at Cheticamp and Grand Etang.

A major winter storm that swept through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence Sunday and Sunday night cut loose with a severe outbreak of suetes on western Cape Breton. In the wee hours of Monday morning, sustained winds rose above 70 mph for about two hours at Grand Etang; highest gusts were 90 to 100 mph.