Environment Canada has issued a hurricane watch for the coasts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, including Grand Manan and Charlotte County.
Within the text of the watch, it adds, “there is a slight possibility that Hurricane Lee could bring near-hurricane conditions.” Expect gusts of up to 120 km per hour.
Category 1 Hurricane
Lee, a Category 1 hurricane, is expected to make landfall in the southern maritime waters of the Maritimes on Saturday morning, according to the most recent track forecasts. As Lee approaches and reaches the Maritimes, it is expected to strengthen into a tropical/post-tropical storm. It’s possible that the storm may make landfall in the southwest of Nova Scotia on Saturday night or early Sunday morning in New Brunswick, along the Bay of Fundy coast.
Moncton and the southeastern part of New Brunswick are included in the tropical storm watch that is in force for Saint John and the Bay of Fundy shoreline. The western parts of Cumberland and Colchester counties, Lunenburg and Halifax counties, and the Annapolis Valley are under a tropical storm watch.
Winds of up to 60 kilometres per hour (km/h) are possible, with gusts of up to 90 to 100 km/h for the areas under the watch on Saturday. A tropical storm watch also means there is a chance of heavy rainfall, which might lead to local flooding, according to the weather service.
WIND
The storm’s greatest gusts are predicted to hit the southwest regions of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on Saturday. There will be periods when the wind speeds in such places exceed 80 to 110 km/h. Because of the Highlands’ geography, gusts in northern Inverness County, Cape Breton, can easily approach 100 km/h. On Saturday and into early Sunday morning, gusts of 60 to 80 km/h are forecast intermittently throughout much of the rest of the Maritimes. The wind will blow from the northeast at first, then shift to the east and southeast later in the day.
Power outages are most likely to occur in southwestern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The possibility of a blackout exists outside of those places. Since the trees in the Maritimes still have their leaves on, they will be exacerbated by the prolonged period of generally high and violent winds.
RAINFALL
Heavy precipitation is most likely to occur along and just to the west of Lee’s predicted path across the region. That puts New Brunswick squarely in that category right now. A belt of rain with totals of 60–120 mm is likely to move across the province from southwest to northeast. The majority of this precipitation is expected to fall on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Southwestern Nova Scotia could see precipitation totals between 50 and 80 millimetres.
Read More : With a call for a “new generation of leaders,” Mitt Romney has announced that he would not be running for reelection.
Flooding and flash flooding are possible consequences of such high totals within 24 hours. Outside of the aforementioned regions, other parts of the Maritimes could get more scattered showers. Lee is expected to bring between 10 and 40 mm of rain to the rest of the region.
WAVES AND SURF Because of the storm’s massive size, coastal areas of the Maritimes may expect significantly higher than normal waves and surf.
The New Brunswick coast along the Bay of Fundy and the Nova Scotia coast along the Atlantic are likely to be hit the worst. On Saturday, the Canadian Hurricane Centre predicted that “breaking waves of 4-6 metres” (about 15 to 20 feet) were likely along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia.
Saturday is a day to use extreme caution along the coast, especially during high tide. Between 9:30 and 11:30 a.m., the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia will experience its first high tide of the day. New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy shoreline experiences its first high tide between the hours of 1 and 2 in the afternoon.
