Lee bringing high winds, heavy rain as powerful storm hits Canada’s East Coast | Globalnews.ca

Thousands are without power in the Maritimes, as the former Hurricane Lee moves into the region as a powerful post-tropical cyclone.

The storm is packing a heavy punch — bringing strong winds, flooding and dangerous high coastal waves. Trees are down in some areas as well.

As of noon, Nova Scotia Power was reporting nearly 132,000 customers without power, and NB Power was reporting over 38,000 customers in the dark.

The bulk of the outages in Nova Scotia are in the southwestern parts of the province, including the Yarmouth and Shelburne areas.

The storm is expected to make landfall in Yarmouth later in the day but its effects are likely to be felt within a radius of several hundred kilometres, according to Environment Canada.

Global chief meteorologist, Anthony Farnell, said the timing of Lee’s arrival has been crucial for the region.

“There’s still a lot of offshore flow. So the wind is blowing out, which is good news for a lot of the fishermen in a lot of the areas right down by the water,” he said from Yarmouth.

“If this storm made landfall just a few hours earlier during a high tide, it would have added to that storm surge. So now as the tide’s going out, I think the centre comes ashore in a couple of hours and it’s going to be not as bad.”

Farnell went on to say the Halifax airport had reported 117 kilometres per hour winds, which is the highest numbers he had seen in the province.

“So that’s one of the reasons why there’s now widespread power outages. And it looks like right up until about 5 or 6 p.m., the worst of the winds and then slowly getting better and switching direction as we get into into dark tonight.”

Meanwhile, flights in and out of Halifax Stanfield International Airport have all been cancelled. The airport authority is advising travellers to contact their airlines to reschedule any flights.

Halifax Regional Municipality closed Peggy’s Cove closed to the public Saturday. Other areas of concern in the municipality were the Halifax, Eastern Shore, Bedford and Dartmouth waterfronts.

“Residents are advised to avoid shoreline areas as they pose an extreme risk, especially during peak tides,” the municipality wrote in a release.

“Residents are urged to remain off the roads for non-essential travel as there are several reports of downed trees and powerlines across the region.”

Despite the warnings, there were gatherings of people on the waterfronts and coastal areas — prompting RCMP to issue a warning. At one point a man dressed in a full-body swim suit jumped into the harbour and then came out.

“This action is putting themselves at risk along with First Responders in the event of rescue attempts,” wrote Nova Scotia RCMP on social media.

There are multiple wind and rainfall warnings for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick — and more than more than 100 millimeters of rain is expected in some parts.

“Western Nova Scotia and the Annapolis Valley flooding risk is elevated – there could be heavy amounts in the vicinity of the track itself with indications of possibly 75 mm or more directly from Lee,” reads a statement from Environment Canada.

“This combined with the rain that fell recently increases the vulnerability to further flooding in that area.”

Winds will ‘take time to dissipate’

Global’s chief meteorologist stressed that although Lee was a post-tropical cyclone, it still had hurricane force gusts that extended 600 kilometres from one side to the other.

“Even though the centre is weakening slightly, just that huge wind field is going to take some time to dissipate,” he said.

“So that’s why it’s going to continue today and then even tonight, still rather breezy everywhere and tomorrow. Tomorrow is really when when the cleanup could begin.”

— with a file from The Canadian Press

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