A member of the media movies the storm striking Market Wharf throughout post-tropical cyclone Lee inSt Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada, on Saturday,Sept 16,2023 The Canadian Maritimes will take the hardest struck from Hurricane Lee, now formally a post-tropical cyclone with optimum winds of 80 miles per hour.
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The center of post-tropical cyclone Lee made landfall Saturday in Nova Scotia, Canada, with continual winds of 70 miles per hour (110 kph), U.S. weather condition authorities stated Saturday.
The storm’s center came ashore about 135 miles (215 kilometers) west of Halifax, Nova Scotia, the U.S. National HurricaneCenter That’s about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Eastport, Maine.
Once a typhoon and still nearly as strong as one, Lee brought high winds, rough browse and downpours Saturday to a big swath of New England and Maritime Canada, falling trees, overloading shorelines and cutting power to 10s of thousands.
Many citizens brushed off Lee, now a post-tropical cyclone, as very little even worse than the area’s popular and regular nor’easter s, a resemblance some meteorologists acknowledged even while cautioning individuals not to undervalue it.
The storm’s center made landfall in Canada at near typhoon strength on Saturday afternoon, then was anticipated to damage as it moved into New Brunswick and the Gulf ofSt Lawrence, forecasters stated.
In the United States, a hurricane caution was in result for a 230- mile stretch from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to the eastern end ofMaine That consisted of Bar Harbor, the touristy entrance to Acadia National Park, where authorities closed a car park at a pier as high tide relocated and waves crashed versus seawalls.
Activity at the Scituate Boat Ramp prior to Hurricane Lee.
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Lee flooded seaside roadways and boats in Nova Scotia, tore down power lines and trees, and took ferryboats out of service as it fanned stress and anxiety in an area still reeling from wildfires and serious flooding this summer season. Nova Scotia’s biggest airport, Halifax Stanfield International, had no inbound or outbound flights set up Saturday.
“People are exhausted. … It’s so much in such a small time period,” stated Pam Lovelace, a councilor in Halifax, the capital. “From a mental health perspective, we’re asking people to check in on their neighbors.”
A hurricane caution was in result for much of New Brunswick and all of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, together with a typhoon look for parts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
The storm’s center was simply off southern Nova Scotia– lots of miles southeast of Eastport, Maine– with optimal continual winds near 70 miles per hour (110 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center stated in its 2 p.m. EDT advisory. Hurricane strength is 74 miles per hour (119 kph).
Hurricane- force winds extended as far as 140 miles (220 kilometers) from Lee’s center, with tropical-storm-force winds extending as far as 390 miles (630 kilometers)– adequate to cover all of Maine and much of Maritime Canada.
The storm was so huge that it triggered power interruptions a number of hundred miles from its center. At midday Saturday, 11% of electrical power consumers in Maine did not have power, together with almost a 3rd of Nova Scotia, 8% of New Brunswick and 3% of Prince Edward Island.
Storm rise of 1 to 3 feet was anticipated for the Maine coast, and the U.S. typhoon center cautioned it would be accompanied by big and devastating waves. The storm might drop as much as 4 inches of rain on parts of Maine, Massachusetts, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick through Saturday night, with the capacity for regional flooding, forecasters stated.
The storm skirted a few of the most waterlogged locations of Massachusetts that experienced serious flash flooding days previously, when quick water rinsed roadways, triggered sinkholes, harmed houses and flooded lorries.
“At this point, the storm is resembling a nor’easter,” stated Sarah Thunberg, a National Weather Service meteorologist, describing the fall and winter season storms that typically pester the area and are so called due to the fact that their winds blow from the northeast. They usually have a much larger wind field than tropical systems, whose winds remain closer to a storm’s center.
Keith Oliver works a boat travel lift to take a boat out of the ocean at the Billings Diesel & & Marine Service in preparation for the possible arrival of Hurricane Lee on September 15, 2023 in Stonington,Maine
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But the whole area has actually experienced a specifically damp summer season– it ranked 2nd in the variety of rainy days in Portland, Maine– and Lee’s high winds fell trees worried by the rain-soaked ground in Maine, the country’s most greatly woody state.
Cruise ships discovered haven at berths in Portland, while lobstermen in Bar Harbor and somewhere else pulled traps from the water and carried boats inland.
Billy Bob Faulkingham, House Republican leader of the Maine Legislature, and another lobsterman made it through after their boat reversed while transporting traps ahead of the storm Friday, authorities stated.
The boat’s emergency situation locator beacon informed authorities, and the 2 clung to the hull till assistance got here, stated Winter Harbor Police Chief DannyMitchell The 42- foot boat sank.
“They’re very lucky to be alive,” he stated.
Lee lashed the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Bahamas and Bermuda prior to turning northward, and heavy swells were triggering deadly browse and rip currents in the U.S. and Canada, according to the typhoon center.
Forecasters advised locals to stay at home: “Nothing good can come from checking out the big waves and how strong the wind truly is,” stated Kyle Leavitt, director of the New Brunswick Emergency Management Organization.
But numerous ventured out anyhow. Among them was Ren Renton on Maine’s Bailey Island, a slim spit sticking out into the Gulf of Maine.
“The ocean is always dynamic no matter what storm you get,” she stated. “It comes and goes and takes what it wants, but hopefully not too much.”
Lee shares some attributes with 2012’s SuperstormSandy Both were as soon as strong typhoons that ended up being post-tropical cyclones– cyclonic storms that have actually lost the majority of their tropical attributes– prior to landfall. But Lee was not anticipated to be almost as devastating as Sandy, which triggered billions of dollars in damage and was blamed for lots of deaths in New York and New Jersey.
Lee likewise isn’t anywhere near as serious as the residues of Hurricane Fiona, which a year ago cleaned homes into the ocean, knocked out power to the majority of 2 provinces and swept a lady into the sea, stated Canadian meteorologist Jill Maepea.
Destructive typhoons are reasonably uncommon up until now north. The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 brought gusts as high as 186 miles per hour (300 kph) and continual winds of 121 miles per hour (195 kph) at Massachusetts’ Blue HillObservatory But there have actually been no storms that effective in the last few years.
