Strong winds in the Halifax area blew down a house under construction off Herring Cove Road on Thursday.

The house on Layton Road fell down early Thursday afternoon and damaged an adjacent house and car.

"I was standing over there by the Petro Canada, I was just coming back from my buddy's there and I heard a big 'Woof, woof.' The whole house starting going down off to its side. Next thing you know, the two guys come running out here," said Rick O'Brien, who heard the house fall.

"I'm glad people weren't in it. I tell you, she was deadly."

Halifax Regional Police officers responded and put up tape around the construction site. No one was injured.

Peter Coleman, lives in the house next door, owns the car that was buried under the house.

"I was in bed and it sounded like thunder. It was this major rumble. I got right up and the house that they were building had come down hard," he told CBC News.

Peter Coleman's car was buried when a house under construction blew down in strong winds. (CBC)

"I couldn't believe it. It was such high winds. It sounded like a big roll of thunder coming down."

People in Nova Scotia woke up to record high temperatures and blustering winds on Thursday, just hours after freezing rain swept through the Maritimes.

Peter Coade, the CBC's meteorologist, said there are 16 record high temperatures for the last day of January, including a reading of 16 C in Kentville.

"Some of these records, like in the case of Yarmouth, Sydney and Greenwood air force base, those records go back to the 1940s. This is the warmest Jan. 31 since those records began in the 40s. There will be more broken today," he said.

"Of all the communities that I have known records for going back years there is only one that hasn't been broken yet and that's Sable Island, which likely will be."

Wind warning covers Nova Scotia

Environment Canada placed all of Nova Scotia under a severe wind warning on Thursday. Strong south to southwest winds were expected to develop across Nova Scotia with gusts of up to 90 kilometres an hour expected across most of the mainland and 110 kilometres an hour over the Tantramar Marsh area.

Environment Canada also warned of rough pounding surf and large waves along the Atlantic coast of the province and the Bay of Fundy.

Meanwhile, high winds knocked out power to thousands of Nova Scotia Power customers.

At the peak of the outages, more than 22,600 houses were without electricity on Thursday afternoon.

In Cape Breton, high winds forced Marine Atlantic to cancel its morning ferries between North Sydney and Newfoundland and Labrador. The company said passengers should check their website to get an update on the late night sailings.

The warm weather isn't here to stay. Coade said a cold front will sweep across the Maritimes during the day. He said by Friday, Nova Scotia could see some flurries.

Nova Scotia isn't the only region experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures.

Temperatures across southern Ontario soared as high as 15 C on Wednesday. Toronto and London hit record highs of 14 C while Windsor saw a 15 C high early in the day.