As of 6:30 PM Hurricane Lee is a Category 2 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale is packing winds of 165 km/h. The storm is moving north at 16 km/h and is located 610 km south-southwest of Bermuda. The central pressure is 952 mb and a Hurricane Watch is now in effect for the Canadian/US border in Maine.

The will continue on a northerly trajectory and will end up near the coast of Nova Scotia or northern New England (think Gulf of Maine or Bay of Fundy) Friday night or early Saturday. And may still be a category one hurricane at that time.

We are getting into the window where the impacts from the storm, on the region, are starting to get clearer. Essentially, for maritime neighbours, the exact track will not matter much due to the shear size of the system. At the moment it’s over 1000 km/h from end to end and tropical storm force winds extend nearly 500 km from the centre!

Heavy rain, high winds, high waves, and storm surge will all be present around a very large storm system. And where the worst of each falls, between Maine, NB, QC, NS and PEI is not yet known, but that will get clearer in the next 24 to 36 hours. However, as of this evening, this is what the current impacts look like based on current forecasts.

With respect to NL, we will see some rain from the system over the weekend, and into early next week, but rainfall amounts don’t look prolific and impacts to the Province look minimal compared to what areas to our southwest are facing.

Stay tuned for more updates!