The outer bands of Hurricane Lee began hitting Bermuda Thursday evening as intense waves pounded the archipelago, as the Category 2 storm approached en route to the coasts of New England or Canada, where was heading towards the end of the week.

The meteor was about 595 kilometers (370 miles) south-southwest of Bermuda. It had winds of up to 165 kilometers per hour (105 miles per hour) and was moving north to northwest at 15 km/h (9 mph).

Lee is expected to pass just west of Bermuda, prompting forecasters to issue a tropical storm warning for the islands.

“I cannot stress enough that we need to take this storm seriously,” David Burch, acting minister of national security, said at a news conference.

The Bermuda government announced it would close the airport from midday on Thursday and reopen it on Friday. Banks, municipal parks and ferry services were also scheduled to close on Thursday. Public schools will close Thursday and Friday.

“We don’t want 4,000 little people wandering across the country in tropical storm winds,” Burch said.

Lee is expected to increase in size and continue to move north as it loses strength in colder waters. Then, according to forecasts, it will approach New England and the Canadian coast on Friday and Saturday as “a significant and dangerous hurricane”, indicated the National Hurricane Center (NHC) of the United States.

A hurricane warning is in effect from Stonington, Maine, to the Canadian border. A tropical storm warning was issued for a large portion of the New England coast from Watch Hill, Rhode Island, to Stonington, including Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. A storm surge warning was also issued for Cape Cod Bay and Nantucket.

“Due to Lee’s large size, there will be hazards a great distance from its center, and there will be little or no difference from exactly where it reaches the coast,” the agency said. institution.

Hurricane-force winds extended up to 185 kilometers (115 miles) from the storm’s center, while its tropical storm-force winds reached 390 km (240 miles) from the center, the NHC said. It warned of winds, rain and flooding in parts of New England and the Canadian Atlantic coast.

The storm approaches as New England suffers flooding after severe storms unrelated to the hurricane led the governor of Massachusetts to declare a state of emergency.

Forecasters warned of dangerous currents in the Lesser Antilles, British and U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Turks and Caicos, Bahamas, Bermuda and parts of the U.S. east coast. Stormy conditions were already beginning to be felt on the Atlantic coast of Canada.

“I understand that our community has endured a lot with these back-to-back storms,” Burch said, referring to Idalia, which passed by the island on Saturday as a post-tropical cyclone that has since dissipated. “I want to acknowledge the fatigue and worry that many of you are feeling at this time.”

Meanwhile, Hurricane Margot was moving across the open waters of the Atlantic on Wednesday. It was located 1,270 km (790 miles) west-southwest of the Azores, with maximum sustained winds of 150 km/h (90 mph). It was moving north at 11 km/h (7 mph) and was expected to stay offshore.

Margot is the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30 and reached its peak on Sunday.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts that this year there will be between 14 and 21 named storms, of which 6 to 11 will become hurricanes. Of these, two to five are estimated to become Category 3 or higher hurricanes.