Update: Lee downgraded to a Category 4 hurricane. Here’s when SC could see impacts
After reaching Category 5 status early Friday morning, Hurricane Lee was downgraded to a Category 4 shortly before noon. However, forecasters still expect Lee will be a powerful storm.
Overnight Thursday, Lee’s maximum wind strength more than doubled, reaching 165 mph and briefly making it the eighth Category 5 hurricane since 2016. By around noon, Lee’s winds had dropped down to 155 mph, making it a Category 4 storm.
“Fluctuations in intensity like what has occurred this morning are not uncommon in intense hurricanes,” the National Hurricane Center said in an 11 a.m. Friday advisory. “Although Lee’s current intensity is lower than the overnight peak, the hurricane remains very powerful.”
On Friday morning, Lee was expected to “maintain its intensity,” with its core predicted to move “well north” of the northern Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, according to the National Hurricane Center’s 5 a.m. advisory. Lee was moving west-northwest at 13 mph, and forecasters say the forward motion will continue through early next week with a significant decrease in speed, based on the forecast.
“Although the hurricane is incredibly powerful, its wind field is not particularly large with its tropical-storm-force winds extending roughly 100 n mi (nautical miles) from the center,” a forecasters’ report noted.
Because Hurricane Lee is remaining in “favorable” atmospheric conditions, whirring into warmer waters in the coming days, the storm is predicted to remain a “powerful hurricane.”
“There likely will be some weakening beyond a few days when Lee moves over somewhat cooler waters and into an environment of slightly higher shear,” the center said. “Regardless of the details, Lee is expected to remain a powerful hurricane during the next several days.”
Eric Blake, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, mentioned how “unusual” the 2023 Atlantic water temperatures are compared to 40 years ago. In 1983, waters east of the Leeward Islands were about 81.5 degrees during this time. Now, the water is nearly 4 degrees warmer, at 85.1 degrees.
The warmer water “arguably doubles or triples the chance of rapid intensification,” Blake wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Beginning Friday, life-threatening rip currents and dangerous surf are likely to impact the Leeward Islands and will reach to Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas and Bermuda.
While it’s still too soon to know how Hurricane Lee will impact North America, some spaghetti models — a data visualization method that shows possible storm tracks — show the storm curving north in the Atlantic and coming precariously close to Eastern New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Regardless, the U.S. East Coast cannot ignore Hurricane Lee despite the storm being more than a week away from possible impact to North America.
The National Weather Service’s Charleston Office said that, between Friday and Tuesday, “there could be a considerable change in seas due to long period swells arriving” from Lee, despite the distance of the storm to the Carolinas. A small craft advisory may need to be issued, said NWS Charleston Meteorologist Courtney Maskell during a Friday weather briefing.
On Friday morning, the Hurricane Center said dangerous surf and rip currents are expected along most of the U.S. East Coast beginning Sunday.
Hurricane Lee briefly joined a group of seven notorious Category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic since 2016:
Hurricane Matthew in 2016
Hurricane Irma in 2017
Hurricane Maria 2017
Hurricane Michael 2018
Hurricane Dorian in 2019
Hurricane Lorenzo in 2019
Hurricane Ian in 2022
Newly formed tropical storm
Early Monday morning, Tropical Storm Margot formed, bringing maximum wind speeds of 40 mph about 590 miles west-northwest of the Cabo Verde Islands.
National Hurricane Center forecasters predict Margot will strengthen into a hurricane by Sunday. To do so, Margot’s winds would need to reach at least 74 mph. Currently, Tropical Storm Margot is no threat to land.
