Hurricane Lee and Me

I live in Maine, and people keep hearing about Hurricane Lee and Maine, so I suppose it’s no wonder I’ve also been asked “What’s happening with the hurricane?” a fair bit. We don’t get hurricanes here in Maine very often (and it doesn’t look like we’re going to get one this time, either), but I can just update you all at once about what’s up with the storm in my corner of the state.

Honestly, I’m not expecting it to amount to much for me. It will be windy. Right now they’re saying wind should top out at 26mph by me. It’s definitely been windier here before. We’re supposed to get .2 inches of rain. That’s . . . pretty much nothing. Of course, the eastern part of the state has things a bit differently. They’re looking at about 4 inches of rain and 33mph winds. That’s definitely a lot of rain, even for here, especially with how waterlogged the ground is already. (It’s been a very wet summer.) I was just talking to someone in Machias, and the university closed campus today at noon, requiring all students to head elsewhere. (They provided housing for them at the flagship campus in Orono, if they needed it, it sounded like.)

It’s helped that the hurricane’s path kept pushing eastward, putting us more and more out of the way of it. I think it’s possible we’ll lose power some, and the apple harvests might be hit by this, but by and large, I’m hoping for a fairly normal weekend.

Of course, weather forecasts have been wrong before, and I wonder if I’m jinxing myself by typing this. (I can just see it now: the Hurricane Pilot getting an urgent message. “Bryce said he thinks he’ll be fine!” And just like that, the Pilot spins the wheel to the left, changing course as fast as possible . . .)