HALIFAX - The Canadian Hurricane Centre has now extended tropical storm watches to Cape Breton and Iles de Madelaine as hurricane Earl approaches.
The centre's latest tracking places the Category 2 storm about 135 kilometres east-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
It says Earl's maximum sustained winds are estimated at 167 kilometres an hour and the storm is moving north-northeast at 30 kilometres an hour.
Hurricane watches remain in place across southeastern Nova Scotia — in Queens, Shelburne, Yarmouth and Digby counties.
Tropical storm watches are in place for the rest of mainland Nova Scotia, PEI and southeast New Brunswick, and are likely to be raised to the warning level.
Those watches are now extended to Cape Breton and Iles de Madelaine.
The centre says rainfall warnings for amounts from 50 to 70 millimetres will soon be posted for forecast regions along and just left of the track for the Maritimes.
The hurricane's squalls have started lashing North Carolina’s dangerously exposed Outer Banks, the first stop on the storm’s projected path up the Eastern Seaboard.