Storm tracking: Hurricane Lee forecast cone extends across Maritimes

The forecast cone for Lee now includes all three Maritime provinces. The cone represents the area the storm will take a probable path through. The risk of stormy weather for the Maritimes continues to be Saturday and Sunday.

The forecast cone for Lee now includes all three Maritime provinces. The cone represents the area through which the storm will take a probable path. The risk of stormy weather for the Maritimes continues to be Saturday and Sunday.

Due to the increased amount of uncertainty that far into the forecast for the storm, it should be noted that the cone is quite wide, measuring over 700 km in width.

In their first bulletin on Lee, the Canadian Hurricane Centre stated that “The range of track possibilities is very broad this far ahead in time, ranging from somewhere in Maine to the southeast of Nova Scotia.” The extent the centre of the storm moves through that area will determine what areas experience the worst of the weather with the storm.

For example, a pass more towards the west, into Maine, would direct the strongest of the winds Saturday into coastal Maine and the heaviest of the rain through that state and into eastern areas of Quebec. A pass of the centre of the storm into southwestern Nova Scotia would bring the most intense wind into western areas of that province and southern New Brunswick Saturday, with the heaviest rain occurring in southwestern Nova Scotia and extending into New Brunswick. A more precise path through the area will continue to be narrowed down over the coming days.

On the plus side, as Lee moves west of Bermuda it is expected to encounter a pool of relatively cooler water that was left in the wake of the passage of Hurricane Franklin last week. That, combined with some unfavourable wind conditions, is expected to decrease the intensity of the storm with it approaching as a Category 1 hurricane – making the storm weaker than both Fiona and Dorian, which arrived as equivalent Category 2.