Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Canada’s Maritime provinces braced for high winds and waves as a weakening Hurricane Bill moved up the East Coast of the U.S. today.

The storm had sustained winds of 85 miles (140 kilometers) per hour, making it a Category 1 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, said the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was about 185 miles east of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and moving north-northeast at about 26 miles per hour, the center said today in its 5 a.m. advisory. The storm is about 275 miles south-southwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Hurricane Bill, which was a Category 4 storm at midweek, was lowered to the Category 1 status yesterday and is expected to keep losing strength as it passes by Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and Newfoundland today, AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alan Reppert said in an interview.

“We now believe it is not going to strengthen any more,” Peter Bowyer at the Canadian Hurricane Centre in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia said yesterday on a conference call with reporters. “It should hold its strength for the next 10 to 12 hours and then start to weaken as it moves through our district.”

A tropical storm warning was issued yesterday for Nova Scotia from Charlesville in Shelburne County eastward to Point Aconi and from Ecum Secum in Halifax County to Point Aconi, the U.S. Hurricane Center said in its advisory. Bill is poised to bring as much as 3 to 4 inches of rain and hurricane force winds to the Maritimes, the Canadian Hurricane Centre said.

Cape Cod

An increase in forward speed is expected for the storm as well as a turn to the northeast, the U.S. Hurricane Center advisory said. The hurricane will be near Nova Scotia later today and move toward Newfoundland tonight.

In the United States, high winds of about 30-40 miles per hour were expected to make their closest approach to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, through this morning. The storm is expected to pass about 150 miles east of Nantucket, according the National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts.

“It’s moving along at a pretty good clip,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. At 30-40 miles per hour, he said, “that’s enough to blow some lawn furniture around and knock some tree limbs down, and it’s very high surf.”

A tropical storm warning is in effect for the coast of Massachusetts close to Cape Cod, from Woods Hole to Sagamore Beach, including Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, where President Barack Obama and his family are scheduled to travel today for a week’s vacation.

Bermuda

Large swells are expected along much of the U.S. East Coast and the Atlantic Canada. The U.S. hurricane center warned of dangerous surf and life-threatening rip currents.

Similar swells were still affecting the Bahamas and Bermuda as of 11 p.m. yesterday, according to the Hurricane Center. Hurricane Bill, which passed through that region earlier today, did little damage. Bridges, ferries and the airport in Bermuda were reopened yesterday after closing.

Workers were being evacuated from the Sable Offshore Energy Project, a gas field 125 miles off Nova Scotia, said Margot Bruce-O’Connell, a spokeswoman for Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. Aug. 21. The rigs, backed by Exxon and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, were closed for maintenance and the storm won’t affect production, she said.

Some refineries in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick may be at risk, including closely held Irving Oil’s Saint John plant that processes about 300,000 barrels of oil a day, according to Olivier Jakob, an analyst with research group Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Switzerland.

In September 2008, Hurricane Kyle hit the Maritimes as a Category 1 storm, causing tree damage and power outages from winds that were sustained for three to four hours, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s storm data.

The 2009 hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, got off to a quiet start before three named storms formed in a period of 48 hours Aug. 15 and 16. Tropical storms Ana and Claudette have since dissipated.

To contact the reporters on this story: J. Kyle Foster in New York at kfoster2@bloomberg.net; Chris Fournier in Halifax at cfournier3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 23, 2009 06:28 EDT