Hurricane Lee updates: Storm makes landfall in Nova Scotia as post-tropical cyclone

Lee continues to weaken Saturday afternoon and remains a post-tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, which is now tropical storm strength.

The center of Lee is near western Nova Scotia and will likely come ashore in Atlantic Canada in the next couple hours, akin to a routine nor'easter.

Weather conditions are improving across much of New England. Notable impacts moving forward are now focused over eastern Maine, where strong wind gusts and areas of rain will linger through this evening before it all wraps up by midnight.

A tropical storm warning remains in effect for portions of Maine, as well as across Nova Scotia and portions of New Brunswick, Canada.

Eastern Maine and western Nova Scotia are getting hit with the brunt of the rain and wind impacts from Lee. A wind gust of 52 mph was recently reported in Bangor, Maine.

Breezy conditions will persist along the New England coast this evening and tonight. Notable impacts should be done by midnight as what's left of Lee races north.

Ocean impacts will be slower to improve this weekend. Rough surf and dangerous rip currents will impact a large swath of the East Coast through this evening, then begin to diminish on Sunday.

-ABC News' Daniel Peck

More than 102,000 customers are without power in New England, including more than 93,000 in Maine, amid weather impacts from Lee, according to PowerOutage.us.

Still producing hurricane-force winds, Lee has been downgraded to a post-tropical storm as it approaches Nova Scotia on Saturday morning.

The remnants of Hurricane Lee -- now basically an extreme Nor’easter -- are bearing down on coastal New England and Canada. But even though Lee is now post-tropical, the storm remains strong as it produces huge waves, life-threatening rip currents, strong winds and widespread rain to New England, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Data from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate that maximum sustained winds remain near 80 mph with higher gusts at Lee’s center.

Lee is expected to be at or just below hurricane strength when it reaches Nova Scotia later today.

On the forecast track, the center of Lee will continue to approach the coast of Nova Scotia this morning. Lee is then expected to turn toward the north-northeast and northeast and move across Atlantic Canada tonight and Sunday.

By 10 p.m. tonight, rain will be northeast of America and completely in Atlantic Canada.

Winds will be simply “windy” down to “breezy” by Sunday morning with gusts of only 15-30 mph at 7 a.m. Sunday in New England.

For now, Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 390 miles from Lee’s center.

Swells generated by Lee are affecting the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the east coast of the United States and Atlantic Canada. These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.

Rip currents alerts are set to a high risk from New England all the way to Florida as the entire Atlantic coast of America will be seeing life-threatening rip currents today. Through tonight, Lee is expected to produce rainfall amounts of 1 to 4 inches over far eastern Massachusetts, eastern Maine, western Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.

Lee is picking up speed as it moves north and is now about 290 miles southeast of Nantucket, Massachusetts.

The rain will start to hit southeastern New England Friday evening with winds increasing overnight. The storm will last in the region through Saturday afternoon.

Lee, currently a Category 1 hurricane, is forecast to weaken to a tropical storm by Saturday afternoon.

The rough surf, big waves and dangerous rip currents will persist across much of the East Coast through Saturday.

Lee will likely come ashore in Canada -- in western Nova Scotia or western New Brunswick -- by Saturday afternoon or early evening.