Tropical Storm Earl Weakens, Heads for Coast of Nova Scotia
Tropical Storm Earl Weakens, Threatens Nova Scotia
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Lifeguards watch the beach which is closed to swimming due to Hurricane Earl on September 3, 2010 in Montauk, New York.
Lifeguards watch the beach which is closed to swimming due to Hurricane Earl on September 3, 2010 in Montauk, New York. Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Tropical Storm Earl, which is lashing Nantucket and Cape Cod in Massachusetts with wind and rain, is forecast to come ashore near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia later today.
The storm, which has been losing strength since peaking with winds of 145 miles (233 kilometers) per hour earlier this week, was forecast to pass by Nantucket Island overnight as it had yesterday off the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
“Earl is weakening, it is getting sheared apart with the upper level trough that was moving from the west,” said Gerry Bell, lead hurricane forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration based in Camp Springs, Maryland. “Earl is moving into progressively into colder water, [and] is weakening as it should.”
The system was downgraded to a tropical storm just before 11 p.m. Boston time yesterday, when it was 90 miles south of Nantucket with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph.
As a hurricane, Earl disrupted air and rail travel along the U.S. East Coast yesterday and caused flooding. It forced Imperial Oil Ltd. to start the shutdown process at its refinery in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, company spokesman Pius Rolheiser said yesterday.
There were 151 canceled flights across 21 airports along the East Coast as of late yesterday afternoon, more than usual for a typical day this time of year, according to FlightStats.com, a Portland, Oregon-based company that tracks aviation data. New Jersey’s Newark airport had the most with 43, while New York’s LaGuardia had 14 and Norfolk, Virginia, had 18.
Sunny and Warm
The storm is still expected to drop 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) of rain across eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island and as much as 8 inches in some locations, said Kim Buttrick, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts.
As Earl pulls away from New England it was forecast to leave sunny and warm weather in its wake for the U.S. Labor Day holiday weekend, said Kim Buttrick, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts.
“Earl is turning out to be a pearl, for the weekend anyway,” Buttrick said.
She said beachgoers should use caution this weekend because dangerous currents will linger.
“It takes awhile for the ocean to dampen,” Buttrick said. “High surf and dangerous rip currents could cause a risk to life to anyone who ventures in the water.”
Gaston
Elsewhere, the National Hurricane Center is tracking two systems, one of them the remains of Tropical Storm Gaston. The center gives Gaston a 60 percent chance of reforming. The second system, off the African coast, has a 30 percent chance of becoming a storm.
In the eastern Pacific, the center is also tracking two tropical depressions, one of which is expected to develop into a tropical storm and strike southern Mexico overnight. The Mexican government has issued a tropical storm warning for its southern Pacific coast near the Gulf of Tehuantepec, according to the center.
For Related News and Information: Tropical weather affecting the U.S.:
To contact the reporters on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net; Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net.
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