540,000 lose power as Fiona makes landfall in Canada

Hurricane-strength Fiona made landfall in Nova Scotia early Saturday and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands in eastern Canada.

Driving the news: More than 540,000 outages were reported in Atlantic Canada, according to utility tracker Poweroutage.com. Almost all of Prince Edward Island's 86,000 customers are among the outages.

• Fiona, now considered a post-tropical cyclone, is a "historic, extreme event" for Atlantic Canada, said Bob Robichaud, a warning preparedness meteorologist with the Canadian Hurricane Centre.

Threat level: Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph — the same power of a Category 1 hurricane — Saturday morning, with its center over the Gulf of St. Lawrence after crossing Nova Scotia, the National Hurricane Center said.

• It had previously hammered Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic earlier this week, leaving millions of people on the islands without power and causing at least five deaths.

What they're saying: "Across the province, we're hearing reports of damaged trees and power lines as the storm continues to pass through," the Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office tweeted.

• Cape Breton's Regional Municipality Mayor and Council have declared a State of Local Emergency.

Context: Hurricanes are becoming more intense and damaging from human-caused climate change and global warming, enabling them to shed heavier amounts of rainfall and stay stronger further north.