Forecasters issued a rare tropical storm warning and hurricane watch on Saturday for parts of coastal Maine as Hurricane Kyle roared toward the region, threatening conditions similar to a New England nor’easter.
Authorities expected the state to see the worst late yesterday or early today, with wind gusts as high as 97kph and waves of 4.5m to 6m, said Robert McAleer, Maine Emergency Management Agency director.
Authorities advised people living on coastal islands to evacuate if they depend on electricity for medical reasons, because ferry service would probably shut down yesterday, McAleer said.
Significant power failures on the north coastal region of the state were also expected, he said.
He warned that coastal flooding could be a problem and said some hospitals in vulnerable areas had started sandbagging. Another major threat is small stream flooding, he said.
It was Maine’s first hurricane watch in 17 years, the National Weather Service said. Elsewhere in New England, a hurricane warning was posted for Nantucket Island off the coast of Massachusetts in September 1996, the Weather Service office in Taunton, Massachusetts said.
Rain had already fallen along some coastal areas by midday Saturday, reaching 50mm to 100mm, and the storm was expected to deliver 50mm to 100mm more, said Eric Schwibs of the Weather Service in Gray.
At 11pm, Kyle was centered well off North Carolina, about 571km south of Nantucket, the US National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
The storm had top sustained winds near 121kph and became a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday afternoon. It was moving north over the open Atlantic at 37kph. It was expected to strengthen slightly before weakening closer to Maine.
Kyle’s center was forecast to be near eastern New England or the Canadian Maritime provinces late yesterday or early today, the Hurricane Center said.
Weather watches or warnings stretched along the entire Maine coast.
Kyle was expected to trigger tides of 0.3m to 0.61m above normal, accompanied by large, damaging waves, the Hurricane Center said.
Kyle could make landfall near Eastport, possibly late yesterday, the Hurricane Center said.
That would put the storm’s strongest wind in New Brunswick, rather than in Maine, which would get conditions more akin to “a garden variety nor’easter,” Schwibs said.
The Coast Guard urged sailors to seek safe haven, saying the storm may hinder their ability to respond to emergencies.
The state Emergency Management Agency has deployed communication equipment to the area where the storm is most likely to make landfall, McAleer said. An emergency operations center was expected to be activated yesterday morning.
The government of Canada issued a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning for southwestern Nova Scotia, and a tropical storm watch remained in effect for the rest of Nova Scotia and southwestern New Brunswick.
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