Hurricane Lee as of Thursday, September 14th is a category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 100 mph. Lee’s latest track is expected to graze the New England coast, directly impacting Nova Scotia as a tropical storm Saturday afternoon and evening.

As Lee continues to move further north, it will encounter colder sea surface temperatures and stronger mid to upper-level winds, which will weaken the storm. Despite that, Lee has a large wind field, which will impact many inland areas along the East Coast from New York to Maine and coastal Canada. 

The forecast and effects below will continue to update but are the highest probability as of Thursday morning, September 14th. Please continue to check your local National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) for more updates.

The three main threats from Lee are: 

• Large wind field
• Coastal flooding and large waves
• Heavy rain

Large Wind Field: 

The current wind field is nearly 500 miles and while this will shrink slightly as the storm weakens, it will still be several 100 miles wide as it impacts the East Coast starting Friday afternoon. Lee has such a large wind field because it was briefly a category 5 hurricane on September 8th and was a major hurricane (category 3 or greater) for 6 days from September 8th to the 13th. 

Winds will start to become gusty along Cape Cod Friday afternoon (~40mph) and increase to near 70 mph on Saturday morning. Other areas in interior New England will see wind gusts in the 30s mph on Saturday. The higher you go in the mountains and the further east you go into Maine and Canada, the gustier the winds will be.

Nova Scotia will see the brunt of the storm with wind gusts over 70 mph possible. 

Here is a look at the ECMWF (Euro) model's predicted surface wind gusts from 11 am Friday, September 15th to 8 pm Saturday, September 16th. 

Coastal Flooding and Large Waves:

Lee is expected to bring coastal flooding and large waves along the East Coast and coastal Canada from Friday afternoon through Saturday. The National Weather Service (NWS) in Boston has issued a storm surge watch and tropical storm warning for Cape Cod with, “the potential for 2-4 feet above ground somewhere within surge prone areas.

Moving further up the coast into New Hampshire and Maine, the NWS has issued a tropical storm and a hurricane watch with waves of 14 - 23 feet possible. While storm surge is not a huge factor in coastal New England (besides Cape Cod), large waves with strong winds will cause coastal erosion and other hazardous impacts.  

Nova Scotia will see coastal flooding in low-lying areas with waves of at least 15 ft and possible waves of 30 ft from Friday night through Saturday. 

Heavy Rain:

Lee will have heavy rain associated with it (1-4+ inches) and a very sharp gradient from east to west. As Lee continues to weaken, the storm will “fall apart” and become asymmetric. This means that Lee will not look like a classic circular hurricane.

Lee's asymmetric shape will cause the heaviest rain to be on the northwest side of the storm, similar to a Nor’easter. The exact track of the storm will have a significant impact on how far heavy rain moves inland to the west. As of the Thursday morning forecast, the heavy rain line will set up in Cape Cod and just to the east of the New Hampshire - Maine border. 

Here is a look at the latest ECMWF (Euro-left) and GFS (right) forecast of precipitation accumulation for Friday and Saturday.

Both models have a similar track of Lee, but the GFS has the center slightly more to the east.

Track Uncertainty: 

The NHC cone of uncertainty at the top of this article shows the potential tracks of Lee with the most likely outcome for the center of the track. The three threats highlighted above are for the center track based on the NHC forecast. 

Any change east or west will impact how far winds move inland, how high waves will be along the coast, and how heavy rain moves inland.

Hurricane Lee is bringing a lot of threats to the East Coast and Eastern Canada, with life-threatening conditions possible. While this article is the most up to date as of Thursday morning, September 14th, information could change as the storm gets closer to impacting the East Coast and coastal Canada. 

Zach Butler