As Dorian approached Atlantic Canada, hurricane and tropical storm warnings were issued for Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. On September 6, the Halifax Regional Municipality encouraged residents living along the eastern shores of Nova Scotia to evacuate, citing expected high winds, heavy rainfall, and waves up to 15 m (49 ft) in height. The Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office implored residents to secure easily dislodged objects to prevent high winds from turning them into projectiles, drawing comparisons to Hurricane Juan in 2003. Nova Scotia Power set up an emergency operations center and mobilized 1,000 personnel, including forestry crews, damage assessors, as well as power line technicians from adjacent provinces, to prepare for Dorian's impacts. WestJet, Air Canada, and Porter Airlines issued travel advisories for the weekend and waived rebooking fees for flights to and from affected areas.
On August 19, 2019, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) identified a tropical wave—an elongated trough of low air pressure—within a monsoon trough over Guinea and Senegal in western Africa. Convective activity associated with the wave was limited by an abundance of Saharan dust in the region. Propagating west over the tropical Atlantic Ocean, the system remained disorganized for several days. On August 23, a defined area of low pressure consolidated at the surface and thunderstorm activity increased. The system acquired sufficient organized convection to be classified as Tropical Depression Five at 15:00 UTC on August 24. At this time the system was situated 805 mi (1,300 km) east-southeast of Barbados. A deep ridge imparted continued westward movement of the depression, steering it toward the Lesser Antilles. A small cyclone, it soon developed a defined inner-core with a 12 mi (18 km) wide eye-like feature. This marked the system's intensification into a tropical storm, at which time it was assigned the name Dorian by the NHC. Thereafter, moderate wind shear and surrounding dry air limited further organization. Rainbands gradually wrapped more around Dorian on August 25–26, though convection remained inconsistent.
More InfoAs Dorian approached Atlantic Canada, hurricane and tropical storm warnings were issued for Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. On September 6, the Halifax Regional Municipality encouraged residents living along the eastern shores of Nova Scotia to evacuate, citing expected high winds, heavy rainfall, and waves up to 15 m (49 ft) in height. The Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office implored residents to secure easily dislodged objects to prevent high winds from turning them into projectiles, drawing comparisons to Hurricane Juan in 2003. Nova Scotia Power set up an emergency operations center and mobilized 1,000 personnel, including forestry crews, damage assessors, as well as power line technicians from adjacent provinces, to prepare for Dorian's impacts. WestJet, Air Canada, and Porter Airlines issued travel advisories for the weekend and waived rebooking fees for flights to and from affected areas.
More InfoAt 16:40 UTC on September 1, Dorian made landfall on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, with one-minute sustained winds of 185 mph (298 km/h), wind gusts over 220 mph (355 km/h), and a central barometric pressure of 910 millibars (27 inHg), as Dorian reached its peak intensity during landfall. Storm chaser Josh Morgerman observed a pressure of 913.4 mbar (26.97 inHg) in Marsh Harbour. Dorian's forward speed decreased around this time, slowing to a westward crawl of 5 mph (8.0 km/h). At 02:00 UTC on September 2, Dorian made landfall on Grand Bahama near the same intensity, with the same sustained wind speed. Afterward, Dorian's forward speed slowed to just 1 knot (1.2 mph; 1.9 km/h), as the Bermuda High that was steering the storm westward weakened. Later that day, the storm began to undergo an eyewall replacement cycle to the north of Grand Bahama; the Bermuda High to the northeast of Dorian also collapsed, causing Dorian to stall just north of Grand Bahama. Around the same time, the combination of the eyewall replacement cycle and upwelling of cold water caused Dorian to begin weakening, with Dorian dropping to Category 4 status at 15:00 UTC. Due to the absence of steering currents, Dorian stalled north of Grand Bahama for about a day. Dorian subsequently weakened to a Category 2 storm on September 3, before beginning to move northwestward at 15:00 UTC, parallel to the east coast of Florida, with Dorian's wind field expanding during this time.
More InfoHSBC also appeared to reassure Mossack Fonseca not only that it was "comfortable" with Makhlouf as a client but suggested there could be a rapprochement with the Assad family by the US. Makhlouf is already known to be a long-standing client of HSBC's Swiss private bank, holding at least $15 million with it in multiple accounts in 2006. The Panamanian files also show HSBC provided financial services to a Makhlouf company called Drex Technologies, which HSBC said was a company of "good standing".
More InfoOn September 4 in the Oval Office, Trump displayed a modified version of the National Hurricane Center's August 29 diagram of Dorian's projected track. The modification was done with a black Sharpie marker to extend the cone of uncertainty of the hurricane's possible path into southern Alabama. Trump said he did not know how the map came to be modified. The incident resulted in the hashtag "Sharpiegate" trending on Twitter. Later the same day, Trump tweeted a map dated August 28, showing numerous projected paths of Dorian. Trump falsely asserted "almost all models" showed Dorian hitting Alabama, even though the map showed most predicted paths would not enter Alabama.
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