Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Bill is forecast to bring dangerous waves and as much as 6 inches of rain to parts of Newfoundland in Canada today as it travels up the Atlantic Coast, after knocking out power for about 40,000 customers in Nova Scotia.

The storm was moving across southeastern Newfoundland at 2 a.m. local time with maximum sustained winds of almost 120 kilometers (75 miles) per hour, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory.

Bill, a category one storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, was moving east-northeast at 65 kilometers per hour and is expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm later today, the center said.

“The effects are pretty much going to be the same as a hurricane,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alan Reppert said in an interview. The storm may bring 3 to 6 inches of rain to parts of Atlantic Canada, Reppert said.

Bill swept past Nova Scotia yesterday, felling trees and swamping roads. Power was restored to all but approximately 300 customers as of midnight local time, according to Nova Scotia Power Inc.’s Web site.

Wharves and other structures may be damaged in southern Newfoundland as high waves and a meter-high storm surge meet spring tides.

“Spectators are strongly advised to keep a safe distance from the shoreline due to the rapid approach of large waves,” Environment Canada said.

Swept Into Ocean

At least three people were swept into the ocean yesterday by a wave created by the storm at Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor, Maine, the U.S. Coast Guard said. A 7-year-old girl was pronounced dead after being found with no vital signs by a lifeboat crew, according to an e-mailed statement. The girl’s father and a 12-year-old girl from Belfast, Maine, were rescued and hospitalized, the Associated Press reported.

Halifax Stanfield International Airport canceled all afternoon flights yesterday and Marine Atlantic suspended ferry services between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland for 24 hours. As much as 20 millimeters (0.8 inches) of rain fell an hour, creating dangerous driving conditions, Environment Canada said.

Hurricane Juan, which made landfall in Nova Scotia in September 2003, killed at least four people, uprooted 100 million trees and left some residents without power for as long as two weeks.

Oilfields off the coast of eastern Canada operated by Suncor Energy Inc., Canada’s biggest oil company, and Husky Energy Inc. weren’t affected by the storm, the companies said.

Sable Offshore Energy Project, a gas field 200 kilometers off Nova Scotia that’s run by Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp., evacuated 200 workers from an idled platform this weekend, said Margot Bruce-Connell, a spokeswoman for Irving, Texas-based Exxon.

To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Fournier in Halifax at cfournier3@bloomberg.net; Jeran Wittenstein at jwittenstei1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 24, 2009 02:08 EDT