Hurricane Melissa Brings Heavy Rain, Damaging Winds

Hurricane Melissa, now a Category 1 storm, tracked toward eastern Newfoundland while feeding moisture into a larger low that produced heavy rain across eastern Ontario, Quebec and the Canadian Maritimes. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick officials warned of wet, windy conditions with gusts strong enough to down limbs and cause power outages, and outages were already reported in some areas. Across the U.S. Northeast, wind advisories and gusts of 35–50 mph accompanied localized 1–4 inch rainfall totals that disrupted Halloween trick-or-treating and prompted warnings about falling trees and flying debris. Dangerous afternoon-to-evening winds affected parts of eastern Pennsylvania, while forecasters in Maine and Portland warned of blustery conditions into the weekend. By contrast, South Florida experienced pleasant, cool, mostly dry conditions with only a moderate rip-current risk, and U.K. forecasters were monitoring the storm’s remnants for a possible wet, windy spell in the far northwest though it had not become a separate named system.