While tropical storm warnings remain in effect across parts of Canada, officials expect Lee to dissipate in the coming days.
Atlantic Storm Lee made landfall at near hurricane strength on Saturday, bringing damaging winds, rough surf and torrential rain across New England in the United States and the Maritimes in Canada.
Meanwhile, authorities withdrew some warnings for the region and predicted the storm would weaken in the coming days.
The US National Hurricane Center said early Sunday that the post-tropical cyclone was located in Canada – about 56 km (35 miles) west of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and about 362 km (225 miles) west of Channel-Port aux Basques , Newfoundland.
The maximum sustained wind speed had fallen to 80 km/h (50 mph) for the third time in 24 hours, with some stronger gusts expected.
“Gradual weakening is forecast over the next few days and Lee could dissipate on Tuesday,” the hurricane center said.
This image provided by Maine State Police shows the vehicle of a driver who suffered minor injuries after a tree fallen from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee smashed through his windshield [Maine State Police via AP Photo]
The center canceled its tropical storm warning for the coast of Maine in the U.S. late Saturday and reported that the Canadian Hurricane Center had ended its tropical storm warning for New Brunswick and parts of Prince Edward Island.
However, a tropical storm warning remained in effect for parts of Canada’s Nova Scotia, the Magdalen Islands and Prince Edward Island, with strong winds potentially causing downed trees and power outages, the center said.
The hurricane center said storm surges would ease on Sunday after forecasting up to 0.91 meters (3 feet) along coastal areas on Saturday.
A 51-year-old driver in Searsport, Maine, died Saturday after a large tree branch fell on his vehicle during high winds on U.S. Highway 1. The post-tropical cyclone was also strong enough to cause power outages several hundred miles from its center.
As of Saturday, 11 percent of electricity customers in Maine were without power, as were 27 percent in Nova Scotia, eight percent in New Brunswick and three percent on Prince Edward Island.
(AlJazeera)
In Maine on Saturday, a whale-watching vessel became loose from its moorings and fell ashore. Lee also flooded coastal roads in Nova Scotia and put ferries out of service, causing alarm in a region still reeling from wildfires and severe flooding this summer. The province’s largest airport, Halifax Stanfield International, has canceled all flights.
“People are exhausted,” said Halifax city councilor Pam Lovelace. “It’s so much in such a short time.”
The entire region experienced a particularly wet summer, ranking second in Portland, Maine, in the number of rainy days – and Lee’s strong winds toppled trees stressed by rain-soaked ground in Maine, the most forested state in the United States.
Lee shared some characteristics with 2012’s Superstorm Sandy. Both storms were once-strong hurricanes that developed into post-tropical cyclones – cyclonic storms that have lost most of their tropical characteristics – before making landfall.
Lee was not expected to be nearly as destructive as Sandy, which caused billions of dollars in damage and was blamed for dozens of deaths in New York and New Jersey in the United States.
Lee was also not nearly as bad as the remnants of Hurricane Fiona, which swept homes into the sea in eastern Canada a year ago, knocked out power in most of two provinces and swept a woman into the sea, said Canadian meteorologist Jill Maepea.
Source : www.aljazeera.com