Tropical Storm Elsa predicted to pass directly over Gulf of Maine late Friday

By Bill Trotter, Bangor Daily News Staff

The National Weather Service is predicting that Tropical Storm Elsa will pass directly over the Gulf of Maine from Cape Cod to the Bay of Fundy on Friday afternoon and evening. 

The storm, which reached hurricane-speed winds of 74 mph or more as it sailed through the Caribbean and then again late Tuesday off the west coast of Florida, had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph as of 8 a.m. Wednesday as it approached land. 

Elsa dumped rain along a long stretch of Florida’s Gulf Coast early Wednesday but appears to have spared significant damage and power outages. Forecasters said Elsa would slice across inland north Florida as a tropical storm with strong rains and wind, then move on to Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia before heading out in the Atlantic Ocean again early Friday morning. 

The cyclone is predicted to remain a tropical storm, with sustained winds between 39 and 73 mph, as it passes over land and then crosses Chesapeake Bay and continues northeast just offshore along the East Coast. It is expected to pass directly over Cape Cod Friday afternoon, run parallel to Maine’s coastline, and then over the Bay of Fundy in Canadian waters later Friday and early Saturday.

Elsa is expected to lose strength as it moves over the cooler waters northeast of Delaware and then over the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy, and to be downgraded to a post-cyclone as it nears Canadian waters. 

National Weather Service forecasters in Caribou are predicting the storm will bring an inch or more of rain to eastern and northern Maine.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.