Hurricane Lee is expected to pass by New England and the East Coast Friday or Saturday as a “large and dangerous hurricane,” according to the latest information from the National Hurricane Center, leaving the area with heavy wind and rip currents even if it doesn’t make landfall as a hurricane.
This satellite image provided by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration shows ... [+]
Hurricane Lee—which is currently a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds around 115 mph—is expected to slowly weaken over the next few days, but remain “a large and dangerous hurricane into the weekend,” according to the NHC.
The storm has grown significantly since last week: Now, hurricane-force winds from Lee are forecast to extend outward up to 115 miles from the center of the storm, and tropical-storm-force winds will extend up to 240 miles.
As of Wednesday morning, swells from Lee were impacting parts of the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas and more.
The swells are likely to cause “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” around parts of the southeastern and mid-Atlantic U.S. coast, and those conditions could spread to New England and Atlantic Canada later on Wednesday.
In addition to the swells, the National Hurricane Center is forecasting an increasing risk of wind, coastal flooding and rain impacts from Hurricane Lee in portions of New England beginning Friday and continuing through the weekend.
The storm might not make landfall as a hurricane on the East Coast, but it could scrape past, and tropical storm impacts—wind speeds between 39 mph and 73 mph—could hit near Maine on Sunday morning. Parts of Maine and Cape Cod are at the edge of the NHC’s forecast cone, which shows the storm’s possible trajectory.
160 miles per hour. That’s how fast the maximum sustained winds were moving at Lee’s strongest point last Friday when it was a Category 5 hurricane.
Hurricane Lee rapidly intensified last week into a Category 5 hurricane, which forecasters have suggested is a result of climate change because warming oceans fuel the development of tropical cyclones. Lee weakened to a Category 4 hurricane by Friday, but it still poses a threat to some islands and parts of the East Coast. The hurricane is now threatening more flooding and rain in states like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, which have experienced flash flooding over the past few days. The hurricane is coming weeks after Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida, causing up to $20 billion in damage and widespread flooding throughout the Florida Gulf Coast, damaging thousands of buildings in multiple counties. The peak of the hurricane season is typically on September 10, and most hurricane activity occurs between mid-August and mid-October, according to NOAA.