Hurricane Lorenzo, a sizeable storm in the mid-Atlantic, has just passed through the Azores and is now heading directly for Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Although the storm is anticipated to lose its Hurricane profile and become an extra-tropical cyclone before it comes ashore in Ireland, the storm will still be packing hurricane-force winds.
The current forecast models are showing that Hurricane Lorenzo will make its way across the Republic of Ireland and then United Kingdom very rapidly through late Thursday and into Friday morning.
The storm is moving at an exceptionally fast 43mph, when compared to most other Atlantic storms which move generally around 5-7mph.
It will be interesting to see over the coming 48 hours exactly how the storm behaves as it moves through areas generally less favourable to tropical storms, and whether the system dissipates more rapidly than forecast, or whether it maintains its power for longer than anticipate.
On Wednesday afternoon, the USA’s National Hurricane Center stopped tracking the storm, handing that particular mantle over to Ireland’s Met Eireann, and the UK’s Met Office.
In its final advisory on Hurricane Lorenzo, the National Hurricane Center said; “The cyclone is forecast to slow down and turn eastward and then southeastward Thursday night and Friday. On the forecast track, the center of post-tropical Lorenzo will move near western Ireland on Thursday, then pass over Ireland and England on Thursday night and Friday.”
In further describing the storm, the NHC added; “Maximum sustained winds are near 80 mph (130 km/h) with higher gusts. Only slow weakening is forecast during the next day or so, and the system is expected to be a strong extra-tropical cyclone when it approaches Ireland Thursday afternoon and evening. A faster rate of weakening is expected when the cyclone moves over Ireland and England.”
Meanwhile, the UK’s Met Office has been very low key on its public reporting of the storm, instead expecting rapid weakening as the storm passes over Ireland and onto the UK’s shores.
Despite this, the Met Office has issued very stark deep sea shipping forecasts for the shipping areas affected by the storm.
Similarly, in their final bulletin, the NHC warned that; “Lorenzo is a very large cyclone. Hurricane-force winds extend
outward up to 150 miles (240 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 390 miles (630 km).”
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