Hurricane Lee: Four Things To Know Ahead of the Coming Storm

The first big Fall storm to hit the Northeast is on its way: This week the National Hurricane Center issued a Tropical Storm warning for Bermuda and warned that southeastern Massachusetts, including Cape Cod and Nantucket, could face a "life threatening" storm surge, including flooding, beginning Friday evening and Saturday.

As of Thursday morning, Hurricane Lee was in the Atlantic Ocean, a few hundred miles southwest of Bermuda and was a category 1 storm with 90 miles per hour winds.

As the northeast U.S. and Canada braces for the weekend, here are four things to know about the coming storm:

A recent National Hurricane Center analysis of Lee’s trajectory indicates that as the storm passes through the colder North Atlantic air, it will gradually weaken but will "remain a large and dangerous cyclone" throughout the weekend. That could mean hurricane-level winds and coastal flooding is possible in eastern Maine, as well as portions of the Canadian provinces New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 

A Hurricane Watch was put in across the area of the Northeast from Stonington, Maine up to the border with Canada, while a Tropical Storm Watch has been issued for the region between Watch Hill, Rhode Island to Stonington, as well as across Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. 

A Storm Surge Watch has also been put in place for Cape Cod.

According to a Hurricane Center map, the chances of tropical storm-level winds — 39 miles per hour, sustained for at least one minute — hitting the U.S. over the next five days vary widely by geography.

Eastern Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine are most likely to be on the receiving end of the high winds, but these areas have between a 5% and 40% likelihood of being hit.

One map shows the likely path Lee will take, with the most severe effects of the storm likely being felt early Sunday morning in parts of Maine and Canada’s maritime provinces, though tropical storm level conditions will still be felt further south. 

These winds can cause trees to fall and down power lines.

Hurricane Lee comes hot on the heels of another storm, Hurricane Idalia, which hit Florida and the southeastern United States in August. Unlike Lee, which appears to be weakening, Idalia strengthened as it progressed, gathering power from the heat generated by the warm ocean water below. This process, known as "rapid intensification," is exacerbated by climate change and warming ocean temperatures.

But earlier in September on Sept. 8, Lee grew from a category 1 to a category 5 storm in a mere 24 hours, stunning climate scientists. Such a rapid intensification has not been observed for the last 40 years and is likely linked to climate change. It has since weakened.

Canadian officials said in a press statement that "with climate change, the average intensity of hurricanes is expected to increase, though we do not expect an increase in the total number of tropical cyclones," and warned that Lee could exacerbate soil erosion caused by a wet summer.