Hurricane Lee is expected to make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane in Canada on Saturday, according to projections from the National Hurricane Center, but storm conditions are expected to hit New England as early as Friday night.
The storm is 395 miles south-southeast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, as of the center’s 11 a.m. Eastern time advisory, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph and heading north at 18 mph. The storm is projected to make landfall in Nova Scotia, Canada, on Saturday. The storm will hit the hardest in New England on Friday night and Saturday but is expected to taper off on Sunday.
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Approximately 3 million people are under a tropical storm warning, with Massachusetts declaring a state of emergency on Friday ahead of the storm. President Joe Biden also approved an emergency declaration for Maine on Thursday.
The state of emergency declaration gives states the power to allocate resources to damage caused by the hurricane and activate the National Guard.
“I do this because it’s necessary to get assets in place and before anything lands here in Massachusetts and puts us in the best possible position to be able to respond in the ways that we need,” Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA) said at a news conference on Friday. “This includes positioning both equipment and personnel.”
Tropical storm conditions and coastal flooding are expected to begin in southern New England within the Tropical Storm Warning area this afternoon, and spread northward along the coast of New England and over portions of Atlantic Canada through Saturday. These conditions are… pic.twitter.com/CeK4glnywe
— National Weather Service (@NWS) September 15, 2023
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Forecasters have warned that coastal areas from New York City and Long Island to the U.S.-Canada border, including Boston Harbor, Cape Cod, and Martha’s Vineyard, could see a storm surge of 1-3 feet this weekend.
The hurricane is projected to hit the coastal regions of New England primarily, but wind could still make it more breezy inland. The storm comes less than a month after Hurricane Idalia hit Florida. Idalia hit the southeastern coast, including the Carolinas and Georgia, as a far more powerful Category 3 hurricane, but experts warn that Hurricane Lee could still cause a lot of damage to New England.