A motorist travels by floodwaters on a street that continues to be closed a day after Atlantic storm Lee handed by the area, on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023, close to Northeast Harbor, Maine.

Robert F. Bukaty/AP

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Robert F. Bukaty/AP

A motorist travels by floodwaters on a street that continues to be closed a day after Atlantic storm Lee handed by the area, on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023, close to Northeast Harbor, Maine.

Robert F. Bukaty/AP

BAR HARBOR, Maine — Atlantic storm Lee — which made landfall at near-hurricane power, bringing destructive winds and torrential rains to New England and Maritime Canada — stored weakening Sunday after officers withdrew warnings and predicted the storm would disappear early this week.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Sunday morning that the post-tropical cyclone was about 135 miles west of Channel-Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland. The prime sustained wind pace was 45 mph with some increased gusts anticipated.

“Gradual weakening is forecast during the next couple of days, and Lee could dissipate on Tuesday,” the U.S. hurricane middle mentioned.

Hurricane Lee is anticipated to hurry up its ahead movement and dissipate within the subsequent couple of days, forecasters mentioned Sunday.

National Hurricane Center

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National Hurricane Center

The sky was sunny in Maine on Sunday morning. Gov. Janet Mills suspended a state of emergency. Less than 5% of electrical energy prospects have been nonetheless with out energy, down from 11% by noon Saturday through the top of the storm. In Canada, 14% of Nova Scotia had no electrical energy, down from 27% on Saturday, with smaller numbers in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

The middle discontinued a tropical storm warning for the coast of Maine late Saturday. It reported late Sunday morning that every one tropical storm warnings for Canada have been discontinued.

Storm surges have been anticipated to subside on Sunday after being forecast as as much as 3 ft on Saturday alongside coastal areas, the hurricane middle mentioned.

Fatality reported in Maine

A 51-year-old motorist in Searsport, Maine, died Saturday after a big tree limb fell on his automobile on U.S. Highway 1 throughout excessive winds. The limb introduced down reside energy traces and utility employees needed to lower energy earlier than eradicating the person, who died later at a hospital, Police Chief Brian Lunt mentioned.

A driver suffered minor accidents Saturday, after a tree downed by Lee went by his windshield on Route 11 in Moro Plantation, Maine, in line with Maine State Police. John Yoder, 23, of Apple Creek, Ohio, tried to cease however could not keep away from the tree. Yoder suffered minor cuts however the different 5 passengers within the van weren’t injured. Police blamed excessive winds for the downed tree.

The storm was tracked as shifting round 22 mph and anticipated to proceed northeast, taking the climate system throughout the Canadian Maritimes. Rainfall was anticipated to be an extra 1 inch or much less for parts of jap Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the U.S. storm middle mentioned.

In Bar Harbor, Maine, the touristy gateway to Acadia National Park, a whale watch vessel broke freed from its mooring and crashed ashore Saturday. Authorities labored to dump 1,800 gallons of diesel gas to forestall it from spilling into the ocean.

Lee flooded coastal roads in Nova Scotia and took ferries out of service whereas fanning nervousness in a area nonetheless reeling from wildfires and extreme flooding this summer season. The province’s largest airport, Halifax Stanfield International, canceled all flights.

“People are exhausted,” mentioned Pam Lovelace, a councilor in Halifax. “It’s so much in such a small time period.”

Hurricane-force winds prolonged so far as 140 miles from Lee’s middle, with tropical storm-force winds extending so far as 320 miles, sufficient to cowl all of Maine and far of Maritime Canada.

The storm skirted among the most waterlogged areas of Massachusetts that skilled extreme flash flooding days earlier, when quick water washed out roads, prompted sinkholes, broken properties and flooded automobiles.

In jap Maine, winds died down sufficient by late afternoon Saturday for utility employees to start utilizing bucket vehicles to make repairs.

The whole area has skilled an particularly moist summer season, rating second within the variety of wet days in Portland, Maine — and Lee’s excessive winds toppled timber burdened by the rain-soaked floor in Maine, the nation’s most closely wooded state.

Cruise ships discovered refuge at berths in Portland, Maine, whereas lobstermen in Bar Harbor and elsewhere pulled traps from the water and hauled boats inland.

Billy Bob Faulkingham, House Republican chief of the Maine Legislature, and one other lobsterman survived after their boat overturned whereas hauling traps forward of the storm Friday, officers mentioned.

The boat’s emergency locator beacon alerted authorities and the pair clung to the hull till assist arrived, mentioned Winter Harbor Police Chief Danny Mitchell. The 42-foot boat sank.

“They’re very lucky to be alive,” Mitchell mentioned.

Lee shared some traits with 2012’s Superstorm Sandy. Both storms have been once-strong hurricanes that grew to become post-tropical cyclones — cyclonic storms which have misplaced most of their tropical traits — earlier than landfall. But Sandy prompted billions of {dollars} in harm and was blamed for dozens of deaths in New York and New Jersey.

Lee additionally was not anyplace close to as extreme because the remnants of Hurricane Fiona, which a yr in the past washed homes into the ocean in jap Canada, knocked out energy to most of two provinces and swept a lady into the ocean.

Destructive hurricanes are comparatively uncommon thus far north. The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 introduced gusts as excessive as 186 mph and sustained winds of 121 mph at Massachusetts’ Blue Hill Observatory. There have been no storms that highly effective lately.

Separately, Tropical Storm Nigel was strengthening and anticipated to change into a hurricane by Monday, the U.S. hurricane middle mentioned. It appeared to pose no threats to the U.S. or Canada. It was about 990 miles northeast of the Lesser Antilles and about 1,115 miles east-southeast of Bermuda. It had most sustained winds of 60 mph and was shifting north-northwest at 13 mph.