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Post-tropical storm Lee is pummeling towards the Maritimes Saturday morning, bringing with it flooding, high waves and power outages affecting more than 166,000 homes.
Lee has been downgraded from a hurricane to a post-tropical storm, with the centre of the storm expected to make landfall between Nova Scotia’s Shelburne and Yarmouth counties in the afternoon.
The change in storm designation refers to the structure of the storm and does not lessen the expected impacts.
Some areas of southwestern region of Nova Scotia are already experiencing significant storm surges, with waves crashing into coastal roadways.
As of about 11:45 a.m., there were nearly 127,500 houses without power in Nova Scotia, more than 37,000 homes in the dark in New Brunswick, and about 390 customers with no power on P.E.I.
In Saint John N.B.’s Kings Square, a large tree has been knocked down as post-tropical storm Lee heads towards the region. Pictured Sept. 16, 2023. (CTV Atlantic/Avery MacRae).
No outages were reported by Newfoundland Power as of 11 a.m.
Environment Canada said that areas along Nova Scotia’s central Atlantic coast could see breaking waves of between four and six metres, and storm surge warnings were in effect from Shelburne County eastward to Guysborough County.
A hurricane watch is in place for Grand Manan Island and coastal Charlotte County, N.B., and for most of Nova Scotia’s Atlantic coast, stretching from Digby County through to Halifax County, while a tropical storm warning remains in effect for most of Nova Scotia and for New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy coast and parts of the province along the Northumberland Strait.
The storm is forecast to bring more than 100 millimetres of rain in some areas, and Environment Canada is warning of possible flooding in parts of southwestern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, including Saint John and Moncton.
Wind gusts could reach 120 kilometres an hour, which may topple trees, down power lines and result in structural damage.