&sq=Google&lang=en&file=File:Lee_2023-09-08_0520Z_(Nighttime_Visible_Imagery).jpg) Lee at peak intensity to the east of the Leeward Islands on September 8 | |
| Meteorological history | |
|---|---|
| Formed | September 5, 2023 |
| Extratropical | September 16, 2023 |
| Dissipated | September 18, 2023 |
| Category 5 major hurricane | |
| 1-minute sustained (SSHWS/NWS) | |
| Highest winds | 165 mph (270 km/h) |
| Lowest pressure | 926 mbar (hPa); 27.34 inHg |
| Overall effects | |
| Fatalities | 4 direct |
| Damage | $80 million (2023 USD) |
| Areas affected | Bermuda, Northeastern United States, Eastern Canada |
| [1] | |
Part of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season | |
Hurricane Lee was a long-lived and intense tropical cyclone which impacted Bermuda, the Northeastern United States, and Eastern Canada in September 2023. The twelfth named storm, fourth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, Lee formed on September 5 from a tropical wave that had moved offshore from West Africa into the tropical Atlantic a few days earlier. A strong steering current caused the storm to track northwestward, far from the Northern Leeward Islands. Highly favorable conditions enabled Lee to rapidly intensify to a Category 5 hurricane on September 7, its winds increased by 80 mph (130 km/h) in 24 hours. This makes it the fifth‑fastest rapid intensification on record in the Atlantic, only behind Hurricane Wilma in 2005, Hurricane Felix in 2007, Hurricane Milton in 2024, and Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Just as quickly however, Lee's strength waned, and it fluctuated in intensity for several days on account of strong wind shear and multiple eyewall replacement cycles.
On September 13, the system rounded the southwest side of a large ridge of high pressure over the central Atlantic, turned, and accelerated northward. Lee soon entered into an environment of increasing wind shear and moved into increasingly cooler water, causing the system to slowly weaken as it passed near Bermuda and New England, and to undergo the transition into an extratropical cyclone. The cyclone then made landfalls in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and in Newfoundland and Labrador, before moving out into the far northern Atlantic on September 18, where it merged with another extratropical low.
Swells generated by Lee caused dangerous surf and rip currents along the entire Atlantic coast of the United States. Strong winds with hurricane‑force gusts caused extensive power outages in the U.S. state of Maine, and in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Total damage is estimated at USD$80 million as of 2024. Three storm-related fatalities have been confirmed: a 15-year-old boy drowned in Fernandina Beach, Florida; a 51-year-old man died in Searsport, Maine, when a tree fell onto the car he was in; and a 21-year-old man who was killed when the boat he was in was capsized and sunk by a large wave in Manasquan Inlet, New Jersey.
- ^ Blake, Eric; Nepaul, Heather (March 21, 2024). Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Lee (PDF) (Report). Miami, Florida: National Hurricane Center. Retrieved March 22, 2024.