Hurricane Fiona hits Canada after brushing Bermuda

The NHC said the storm would affect many parts of eastern Canada as a "powerful hurricane-force cyclone". Canada has issued severe weather warnings for much of its eastern coast.

"Significant impacts from high winds, storm surge, and heavy rainfall are expected," the NHC said in an advisory.

The Canadian Hurricane Center (CHC) said high-speed winds had been reported in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Iles-de-la-Madeleine and southwestern Newfoundland.

Rainfall of up to 4.9 inches (125 millimeters) had been recorded in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the CHC said, with a "high likelihood" of storm surges affecting Nova Scotia, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and western Newfoundland.

"It is certainly going to be a historic, extreme event for eastern Canada," Bob Robichaud, a meteorologist for the CHC, told reporters before the storm made landfall.

"It's a major hurricane... All that momentum is trapped within the storm, so it's very difficult for something like that to actually wind down."

In its latest bulletin, the CHC said conditions would improve in western Nova Scotia and eastern New Brunswick on Saturday, but would persist elsewhere.

At 0900 GMT, the hurricane was located in eastern Nova Scotia, about 130 miles (210 km) northeast of Halifax, and was moving north-northwest at 40 miles (65 km) per hour, the CHC said.

Authorities in Nova Scotia issued an emergency alert on phones, saying power outages were likely and people should stay inside with enough supplies for at least 72 hours.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the storm "a bad one," adding it "could have significant impacts right across the region."

In Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, stores sold out of propane gas cylinders for camping stoves as residents stocked up.

"Hopefully it will slow up when it hits the cooler water, but it doesn't sound like it's going to ," Dave Buis of the Northern Yacht Club in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, told Canadian television.