People gather in Maine to watch large waves from Tropical Wind and Rainstorm Lee

AccuWeather

Some local businesses in Wells, Maine, told AccuWeather's Tony Laubach Sept. 16 was one of the busiest days they've seen in a while, thanks to tourists coming to the beach to watch Lee's waves crash ashore.

Transcript

00:00 been checking in with many people on the ground and of course we've got

00:03 meteorologist Tony Laubach who is in Wells Maine. I don't think he ever

00:06 sleeps. Tony though you said it's a pretty much a party out there from what

00:11 I've heard along the beaches. It is a party and folks here we've been talking

00:17 about it you know that you don't want to take this storm too lightly. I'm gonna

00:21 tell you about a little danger that I didn't really think about till I was

00:24 setting up my camera. This is a clam shell. This came from the sky because

00:30 that little booger behind me here you see that little white seagull that looks

00:34 like he swallowed a basketball yeah he dropped this and nearly hit me in the

00:38 head with it. The seagulls are picking these clams off of the ground and

00:42 dropping them down into the sand to break them open so they can have a

00:46 little bit of a meal and you can have it. That is some of the one of the weird

00:51 dangers we're dealing with here really it's been the riptides and the waves

00:55 that we were talking about. If you were with me earlier we were in Wells Maine

00:58 you saw the waves that were battering along the seashore here. I'm gonna show

01:02 you some video from my buddy Aaron Rigsby who joined us briefly there in

01:06 Wells. This is his drone video and right at the beginning you see a little orange

01:09 dot that is me standing there getting ready for that live shot. We were talking

01:13 about big waves coming up and gets this. Bernie and I have had some conversations

01:17 on and off today that one of the impressive things with these waves was

01:20 the fact that you had offshore flow you had winds blowing against the incoming

01:24 tide and we still had waves that big enough to cover the road at times get in

01:29 some of the people's front yard. Certainly not major issues though as

01:32 most of the water was able to drain pretty quickly didn't have any traffic

01:35 snarls thanks to that but those were still some impressive waves enough so

01:39 where there was a constant stream of traffic driving up and down that road

01:43 people on their cell phones taking pictures that really has been the the

01:46 thing that will be remembered here in Wells will be the tides from this storm

01:50 kind of the early season nor'easter so to speak. Here on Wells Beach again we've

01:56 got people out and about you see the sun is out shining it's actually a really

02:00 nice beach day still got a little bit of that breeze coming out of the north

02:03 probably gusting maybe upwards of 30 miles per hour at times. You see some of

02:07 the spray off the waves behind me as the waves come in you see some of the spray

02:10 getting jutted back so we are seeing a little bit of that here with the

02:14 strength of some of these winds but that really has been the big issue for us

02:17 here for a good chunk of the day really didn't deal with a lot of rain here

02:20 either we had some off and on light rain early on but really for most of the day

02:24 pretty much most of the daylight hours dry from the sky again it was basically

02:28 the tides that were the big story here so that is some good news here we know

02:31 that we were expecting some impacts here and fortunately for folks here this was

02:35 more of a sight to behold and a minor inconvenience more than anything several

02:40 of businesses actually telling us that this was one of the busiest days they've

02:43 seen in a while thanks to all the tourists coming to the beach but things

02:46 quieting down for us here for the rest of the evening the riptides will still

02:50 be a thing for us for the rest of the weekend so don't let your guard down

02:52 especially if you're in the water but get out on the beach and maybe collect

02:55 some seashells and try not to get hit in the head with a clam. I was gonna say Tony

02:59 the next time you go out for hurricane season you're gonna need a hard hat so

03:03 put that in your hurricane preparedness kit because it seems like it's pretty

03:08 essential. Yeah probably a little bit more than just the AccuWeather cap there

03:13 but those birds they are tough. Well of course we have seen that landfall occur

03:19 with Lee as it's worked its way through parts of western Nova Scotia there it is

03:25 a Long Island western Nova Scotia there that's where that leaf landfall did

03:30 occur you can see though they did have some clouds over Maine at the time they

03:34 were still dealing with the rain so it's still a storm system as it continues to

03:37 to work its way northward here.

03:39 A tropical rainstorm lead.

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