Ireland, Scotland about to get hit by Hurricane
 

Now there's something you don't see everyday.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/top...bfcL&ocid=iehp

http://static2.uk.businessinsider.co...ard-europe.jpg

Hurricane Ophelia has intensified to Category 2 strength as it heads toward Europe

Hurricane Ophelia is the latest weather system to whip up winds and rain in the Atlantic. But the storm is heading east toward the northwest coast of Spain and then up to Ireland instead of crossing the Atlantic toward the hurricane-ravaged Caribbean.

Ophelia officially gained hurricane status on Wednesday evening, according to the National Hurricane Center.

As of Thursday afternoon, Ophelia was meandering and expected to move slowly east and northeast. The storm has picked up strength and become a Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of 100 mph and higher gusts.

Some of Ophelia's rain bands are likely to hit the Azores islands over the weekend. Ophelia's projected path then takes it in the direction of Spain and Portugal on the Iberian Peninsula, but current forecasts suggest the storm will gradually turn to the north and remain well offshore.

Only two known storms have hit the Iberian Peninsula — one in 1842, and one in 2005. The most recent was a tropical depression that was previously Hurricane Vince.

After Ophelia moves past Spain, forecasters say it could hit the Irish coast on Monday as an post-tropical storm, but still with hurricane-force winds.

The Irish coast and parts of the UK could experience punishing winds and dangerous waves.


This is the 10th consecutive storm to reach hurricane strength in the Atlantic this season, tying the record also met in 1878, 1886 and 1893.

There are a couple of caveats to that record, however, as Brian Donegan, a Weather Channel meteorologist, recently wrote: A streak-disrupting tropical storm could easily have been missed in those 19th-century years, and this season's Hurricane Lee might be reevaluated to count as two storms.

There have been 15 named storms so far this hurricane season, including Ophelia. That stat — combined with the number of major hurricanes we've seen and the overall cyclone energy generated by the storms — make this an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's standards. Hurricane season continues until November 30.

Is that normal?

I don't believe so. Ordinarily, it's pretty ****ing cold in that region. Not the kind of climate in which hurricanes thrive.

Need a real thread created, please.

It will be subtropical by then, but still rare.

Irish assholes! I say let’em have it.

In a harmless way, just get a little wet.

Snowicane

But still with hurricane intensity winds.

Whoa.....just back from Scotland, England and Ireland a month or so back...

From looking at the map, it should only affect the coast of Scotland (if at all)...But I will have to call my relatives in Inverness to see what's up!

Can you imagine all those Limeys screaming in their accents about the wind and rain! ROFL

I was in England one September when they had had a hurricane.I thought that was only going to hit the Canary Islands or Spain and Portugal.

I have to tell you a funny story, though it's actually more tragic, about the aftermath of hurricane Andrew in 1992 Florida, from one of the central AC installers I interviewed to get a bid. I lost my AC unit during Irma.

He was in the Homestead area. The next day his neighbor actually had a shark in their pool from the storm. A shark! I couldn't believe it, but it's so odd it's funny.

He said, all the roof shingles blew off and then the 'cane started to take the plywood underneath off room by room. He and his family had to keep moving from room to room as each one caved in until they ended up in a walk-in closet in the center of the house. They all thought they were going to die. This all happened in the middle of the night too.

Perhaps, the Loch Ness monster will get tossed about with its existence finally be confirmed.

Thanks a lot, Trump.

A hurricane hitting Ireland starts with an O, and it's Ophelia? Not O'Riley or O'Malley or O'Leary? That's a massive fail.

So it was really a sharknado.