This is where coastal flooding from Hurricane Lee could be worst
When Hurricane Lee makes landfall, there is a threat of coastal flooding, tropical storm-force winds and more from Rhode Island to New Brunswick.
Accuweather
HAMPTON, NH – Millions of residents in eastern New England and parts of Canada remained under tropical storm warnings Friday evening as Hurricane Lee moved toward the region faster than a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center PN -Update.
Because of the approaching storm, President Joe Biden has approved a disaster declaration requested by Maine Gov. Janet Mills to ensure access to federal resources and personnel, officials said Friday. Mills has already declared a state of emergency for the state.
There was widespread concern about power outages in Maine, the country’s most forested state, where the ground is saturated and trees weakened by heavy summer rains. As the storm approached, Tennessee utility workers began taking positions across the state on Friday.
Although Lee is no longer the storm it once was and the worst-case scenarios for landfall in the heart of New England are off the table, risks remain for residents along the coast, where the likelihood of tropical storm-force winds is highest is.
Once a powerhouse that doubled its wind speed in 24 hours and became a Category 5 hurricane, Lee is now far weaker but much wider. The storm is encountering wind shear and dry air on its southern side that will further weaken the storm as it moves over cooler waters tonight and tomorrow, and Lee is expected to become a tropical storm by Saturday evening.
But the magnitude of its tropical-storm-force winds — stretching a distance of 564 miles — remains a reason to take the storm seriously, the National Weather Service warns residents in the region. Wind gusts of up to 40-50 mph are possible inland and are expected to down trees and damage power lines.
As it loses its pure tropical storm characteristics, it will appear more like a nor’easter, according to the weather service office in Portland, Maine.
According to the National Hurricane Center’s 5 p.m. bulletin, Lee was turning about 290 miles south-southeast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Meteorologists said it was moving north on a path that could lead to landfall in Nova Scotia, possibly as a tropical storm.
“The worst conditions on Cape Cod will occur late Friday evening and Saturday as Lee moves more than 100 miles east Saturday morning,” said AccuWeather hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski.
Then, on Saturday, “hurricane and coastal flooding are possible in portions of eastern Maine, southern New Brunswick and western Nova Scotia,” the National Hurricane Center said.
Maine residents prepared for Lee’s arrival Friday. “We took everything out of our garden that could fly around. We were taking things out the windows,” said Mollie Brunetti, 76, of Belmont, Maine. “We just took family photos and put them in carrier bags and breakable things that might fly around.”
“We have our sump pumps set up and ready to go, and if the power goes out we would have to hook them up to a small generator we have. We’re just doing our best,” she added.
Elsewhere in Bangor, Maine, the Lowe’s Home Improvement store saw a steady flow of customers buying generators, sump pumps, shop vacuums, water, flashlights and batteries, store manager Ryan O’Donnell told USA TODAY Friday afternoon.
“We’re not used to that in northern Maine,” he said. “There’s a lot of talk about it, and with hurricane weather, we don’t hear much about it.”
The store has finished its patio season and is using the empty space to house its hurricane preparedness supplies for easier access for customers.
O’Donnell reiterated the hurricane’s anomaly: Maine experienced strong winds, heavy rain and snow year-round, but rarely experienced a hurricane.
“This is all new to the Bangor community,” O’Donnell said.
Tropical Depression 15 formed in the open Atlantic Ocean Friday morning and is expected to become Major Hurricane Nigel within the next few days, the National Hurricane Center said. Although it is expected to remain out at sea and not affect land areas, the storm will contribute to a very active 2023 Atlantic hurricane season.
“Through September 13th, the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season is above average for all tropical cyclone parameters we track at Colorado State University,” hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach tweeted this week. These include named storms, named storm days, major hurricanes, and major hurricane days.
View photos from hurricane preparedness: The path of Hurricane Lee puts coastal towns in New England on alert
Lee had tropical-storm-force winds or greater across 564 miles on Friday, with hurricane-force winds extending over 184 miles. The tropical wind field is larger than the equivalent of 15 Rhode Islands when measured east to west, and larger than three Massachusetts – again measured east to west.
Based on its size alone, Hurricane Lee is huge. On Friday, its wind field at landfall was much larger than that of the infamous Hurricane Katrina. That’s partly because Lee was already moving away from a purely tropical system.
Hurricane Katrina’s tropical-storm-force winds hours before landfall were estimated to be 420 miles in diameter, while hurricane-force winds extended 178 miles.
Lee’s hurricane-force winds have a similar diameter of 184 miles, but his tropical-storm-force winds extend more than 120 miles further, for a total of 564 miles.
However, Hurricane Katrina’s winds far exceeded leeward winds. According to the hurricane center’s final report, Katrina’s maximum sustained winds were 120 miles per hour when it made landfall. Lee’s sustained hurricane winds reached 80 miles per hour on Friday.
It’s easy to roughly estimate the size of a hurricane using forecasts and satellites, but experts use a more precise method to calculate the size of the wind fields within the storm.
The size of the wind field in each quadrant of the storm is reported in the hurricane center’s individual forecast reports.
Wind fields are fluid and can shift and move depending on what is happening in the storm and how close it is to land, where friction is greater than over water.
“It’s complicated,” said Daniel Chavas, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at Purdue University who has spent much of his career studying wind magnitude. “It’s so complicated that there is no defined list” of hurricanes by size, Chavas said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has easily accessible lists that compare hurricanes by wind speed and barometric pressure, but not by size.
Businesses on Massachusetts’ popular Martha’s Vineyard are putting up sandbags, hoping for a best-case scenario ahead of the hurricane’s expected impacts, said Carolina Cooney, executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce.
Late Friday morning, Cooney said it was windy on the island as Dukes County sent out a litany of emergency management information to businesses urging them to have emergency equipment, batteries and docking boats and to be prepared for possible power outages.
People are crossing their fingers in the hope that the fear of the storm does not come true and that they do not suffer major damage. Cooney said some businesses are planning to close early Friday in anticipation of extreme winds and food.
“It’s just supposed to be tonight and tomorrow,” she said. “The ferries are still running and some of us are enjoying the wild weather.”
Maine Gov. Janet Mills declared a state of emergency Thursday as the state was under a hurricane watch Thursday afternoon for the first time in 15 years. Earlier this week, 25 centimeters of rain fell in the region in six hours.
The Coast Guard and emergency management agencies warned New England residents to be prepared, and utilities brought in reinforcements to deal with power outages. At Boothbay Harbor Marina in Maine, the community came together to pull boats out of the water to protect them from danger.
“It’s a day to lower the bars,” owner Kim Gillies said Thursday.
Commercial lobsterman Steve Train said fishermen had sunk their gear in deeper water to protect themselves from storm damage. Fishing boats were also on their way to the safety of ports.
The system threatened to bring a variety of threats to the Maine coast. Ocean waves up to 20 feet high could hit the shoreline, damaging structures and causing erosion; Strong wind gusts could knock down trees weakened by a wet summer; and rain could cause flash flooding in a region where the ground is already saturated, said Louise Fode, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Maine.
Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency in Massachusetts on Friday and asked FEMA to issue an emergency declaration ahead of the disaster, she announced during a midday news conference.
Healey activated 50 National Guard troops to prepare for the storm and respond with flood vehicles if necessary.
The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) opened its state of emergency operations center at its headquarters in Framingham at 7 a.m. The state will also establish operations centers in Franklin and Tewksbury to support local and state agencies.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation urged residents to plan ahead and stay off the roads at the height of the storm.
The worst of Hurricane Lee is expected to miss Boston, the state’s largest city. However, northeasterly conditions with heavy rains, strong winds and flooding along coastal and lowland areas are expected to continue over the weekend, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said at a news conference Thursday morning.
The storm’s turn “slightly eastward” gave her hope, according to Thursday’s update from the National Weather Service. She added that the hurricane’s track could still change.
“Right now, we expect the worst will miss Boston, which is good news,” Wu said. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.”
As of Friday morning, both major airports are experiencing limited delays and cancellations for Friday evening and Saturday morning flights. Cape Air canceled flights from Boston Logan International Airport to Bar Harbor, Maine, on Friday.
The notice on Logan’s website says travelers should check with their airline for flight status before arriving at the airport.
Officials across the state also fear that heavy summer rains could worsen the storm’s effects. Some parts of southern Massachusetts received about twice as much summer rainfall compared to last year.
“The ground is saturated,” said Peter Buttkus, Duxbury’s construction manager. “… the trees act like sails.”
Derek Brindisi, Plymouth city manager, said: “We definitely expect trees to be lost in a high wind event because the terrain is so saturated and the roots become more vulnerable to damage.”
On Cape Cod, residents were advised to have cash, a three-day supply of non-perishable food, water and medications, flashlights and batteries, an emergency evacuation plan and a list of emergency contacts. Local utility Eversource said, “Be prepared for a power outage lasting days.”
James MacNaught, manager of an Ace Hardware store in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, said Wednesday that the store sells sandbags, Quick Dam flood barriers, generators and TruFuel, plastic gasoline containers, chainsaws, flashlights, batteries and coolers.
“We see a lot of people,” MacNaught said. “There is definitely an upward trend.”
Joshua Allen, store manager of Trucchi’s in New Bedford, Massachusetts, told USA TODAY he hasn’t seen much panic buying at the store. Traffic has been higher than usual, he said, but that doesn’t result in items selling out, as happens during winter snowstorms.
“There’s not a lot of panic buying going on and the people I see on the weekend are coming in today,” Allen said.
His colleagues are also in good spirits and he has only heard a few employees mention that they would leave early Friday to brave the rain.
But Allen, who lives near the store, said his concern is power outages since he needs to be at the store in the event of one.
As Hurricane Lee rages across the Atlantic, big waves are hitting the New Hampshire coast, attracting surfers looking for late-summer thrills.
Local surf photographer and blogger Ralph Fatello was at the Fox Hill surf spot in Rye on Thursday, snapping pictures and videos of surfers enjoying 10-foot waves in 60-degree water.
“It’s like surfing in Hawaii,” Fatello said. “That doesn’t happen to us very often.”
Dave Cropper, from surf shop Cinnamon Rainbows, said pleasant surfing conditions would continue until Saturday as the storm worsened. He said the beach is busy this week, as is his store on Route 1 in North Hampton.
“Anytime you surf for several days in a row, it brings out the crowds,” Cropper said.
Featuring: Dinah Voyles Pulver; Caitlyn Kelleher, USA TODAY Network; Hannah Morse, The Patriot Ledger; Denise Coffey, The Cape Cod Times; Cheryl McCloud; Kinga Brody, Worcester Telegram; Associated Press.