by Lee continues to churn in the Atlantic as a major hurricane, with an uncertain path that still could include the east coasts of the United States or Canada.
It will likely pass west of or near Bermuda late Thursday into Friday and move offshore of the Mid-Atlantic states and New England by the weekend, hurricane forecasters said late Monday morning. If it does hit the U.S. or Canada, like many of the weather models indicate, it wouldn’t be until late weekend at the earliest.
Hurricane Center forecasters continue to warn that it was too early to know the level of impacts Lee might have along the Northeast U.S. coast and Atlantic Canada late this week and this weekend. Even if landfall doesn’t occur, just a brush with the coastline could bring impacts. Wind and rainfall hazards will extend well away from the center as Lee grows in size.
There is now at least a small chance that tropical-storm-force winds will occur along portions of the Mid-Atlantic and New England coastlines over the next five days.
Here’s what we know about the hurricane:
What is Lee’s current location and path?
As of Monday evening, Hurricane Lee was about 410 miles north of the northern Leeward Islands, which are in the northeastern Caribbean, and the storm was moving west-northwest at seven miles per hour, the Hurricane Center said.
Lee had maximum sustained winds of 115 m.p.h., making it a Category 3 storm. It had hurricane-force winds extending up to 80 miles from its center, and some strengthening was expected over the next day or so, followed by gradual weakening, the Hurricane Center said.
Lee currently does not threaten any land, and there are no coastal watches or warnings in effect. However, dangerous surf conditions generated by the storm are expected to affect portions of the Lesser Antilles, the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas and Bermuda through much of this week, the Hurricane Center said.
As Lee grows in size, these dangerous surf and rip currents are also expected along most of the U.S. East Coast, starting first in the Southeast and spreading northward over the next couple of days.
Meteorologists are fairly confident that Lee will veer north and stay near or west of Bermuda. There is about a 50 percent chance Bermuda will experience tropical storm-force winds.
From there it will continue to move in the direction of New England and Nova Scotia but still there are factors that could impact the forecast path.
Go here for the latest maps and trackers as Lee moves through the Atlantic.
Why is Lee’s path so complicated?
Storms like to move along the path of least resistance. That path is typically toward low pressure. A high-pressure system to the north is currently steering the storm to the northwest, but that system is expected to shift east around the middle of the week. This shift will allow for the storm to travel north and accelerate in forward speed.
It’s unclear when the high pressure will shift east. The longer Lee goes northwest, the closer the storm gets to coastal areas. It also depends on how slowly the storm moves over the next couple of days.
The expected slow movement of the storm is the main reason forecasters have repeatedly said that “it remains too soon to know what level of impacts, if any, Lee might have along the U.S. East Coast, Atlantic Canada or Bermuda late next week.”
The next factor forecasters will monitor closely into the weekend will be if the high-pressure system restrengthens, presumably pushing the storm back northwest toward the U.S.
When and where are damaging winds possible?
Five-day forecast models now include the probabilities and likely arrival times of damaging, tropical-storm-force winds along the U.S. and Canadian coasts. Use the table below to look up your city or town.
How big is this storm going to get?
Lee formed on Tuesday and intensified rapidly, becoming a Category 5 storm, with winds of 157 m.p.h. or more, two days later. The storm fluctuated in intensity over the weekend, at one point dropping to a Category 2 storm.
Lee will continue to be a strong hurricane this week, fluctuating in intensity over the next day or so, and then will eventually weaken.
Tell me what the models show. (Also, what’s a spaghetti model?)
One of the early versions of a computer model suggested that the East Coast could get hit, a possibility that has lingered in the minds of some forecasters and amateur weather watchers, in part because of widespread social media hype.
But when you look at all the versions of the model, there is still not an overwhelming consensus on where the center of the hurricane will go after this weekend, with some outliers projecting landfall along the East Coast.
Sometimes, multiple models are displayed on a single map with lines plotting where that computer simulation believes the center of the storm will be five, seven or even 14 days in the future.
Known as spaghetti models, these mapped model outputs derive their name from their resemblance to long strands of pasta.
The closer the lines are to one another, the more confidence forecasters have in what the storm might do. For the next few days, there is a pretty reliable consensus that the storm will track northwest.
When the spaghetti lines spread wider apart, forecasters have many more possibilities to contend with.
Right now that spread is everywhere from Cape Cod to Newfoundland, with the greatest density of possible tracks over Maine and Nova Scotia.
What has this year’s hurricane season been like so far?
We’re a little over halfway through the Atlantic hurricane season, which started on June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.
In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 12 to 17 named storms this year, a “near-normal” amount. On Aug. 10, NOAA officials revised their forecast upward, estimating 14 to 21 storms, and the last few weeks have been busy.
When it formed, Lee became the 12th named storm of this year’s Atlantic season. (And the 13th if you count an unnamed storm in January that experts at the Hurricane Center said should have been named.) Lee is also the eighth since Aug. 20, when two tropical storms, Emily and Franklin, formed. A week later, on Aug. 30, Tropical Storm Idalia made landfall along Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 hurricane.
Tropical Storm Margot formed last week and strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane on Monday. It was more than 1,000 miles northwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, off the west coast of Africa, and posed no immediate threat to land.
Anastasia Marks, Eduardo Medina and Derrick Bryson Taylor contributed reporting.
