Storm knocks out power to thousands across province

A powerful storm that brought heavy rain and high winds knocked out power this morning for thousands of Nova Scotians. 

As of 6:25 a.m., more than 19,000 customers were in the dark. At it's peak, more than 25,000 were in the dark Tuesday morning.

The biggest outages are in the Halifax, Dartmouth, New Germany and Yarmouth areas.

According to Nova Scotia Power's website it could be anywhere from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. before customers within the largest outage areas are restored, and 11 p.m. for those in some of the smaller outage areas. 

The Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia, from Halifax eastward, remains under a rainfall warning that began Monday afternoon. A total of 30 to 50 mm of rain is expected by the time the storm tapers off Tuesday afternoon in Cape Breton.

All counties along the Atlantic Coast east of Porters Lake remain under a wind warning with southerly gusts of between 90 km/h and 100 km/h.

Several schools have cancelled classes Tuesday because of power outages. 

Due to power outages at both the Alderney and Woodside ferry terminals, there will be no ferry service until at least 8 a.m. Tuesday. In the meantime, shuttle buses are running from both the Alderney and Woodside ferry terminals to the Halifax ferry terminal.

The weather has forced Northumberland Ferries to cancel two of its crossings this morning between P.E.I. and Nova Scotia while Marine Atlantic cancelled crossings between Newfoundland and North Sydney, N.S. for a second day in a row. 

Bay Ferries has also cancelled its morning crossing between Saint John, N.B. and Digby, N.S.

The entire province is also under a special weather statement from Environment Canada. Wednesday evening through Thursday, a low pressure system is expected to bring at least 15 cm of snow, spreading from west to east. According to the national weather service there's some uncertainty with the track of the storm but it looks like the Atlantic Coast will see the highest snowfall amounts.