UPDATE ONE: 2130z – OCTOBER 1ST 2019 – WEATHER WATCH/DISCUSSION: Hurricane Lorenzo is currently tracking towards the western islands of the Azores group where it is expected to deliver Category 2 strength winds during the early hours of Wednesday morning. Thereafter it will quickly downgrade to a Category 1 hurricane before transitioning to an extra-tropical storm as it moves over cooler waters en route north-eastwards towards Ireland.

While definite track details of Lorenzo are still undecided, current guidance suggests the storm is likely to come close to the southwest and west coast, then moving in over Ireland across the west/northwest, through the north-midlands and exiting the east coast over Dublin-Louth on into the Irish Sea. This predicted path will bring the strongest of winds into counties Kerry, Clare and Galway at first before extending over much of the southern two thirds of Ireland later.

The storm is expected to arrive during Thursday afternoon and owing to its predicted path will take over twelve hours to push through. Winds will slowly change direction as the storm moves through, starting southerly at first, backing southwesterly as the storm moves up the west coast, turning northwesterly as it tracks across the midlands before backing north as the storm exits Ireland.

Top windspeeds are expected to be around 40mph (62kmph) with gusts of 60mph (98kmph) Rainfall amounts are not expected to be very high with up to 10mm or 15mm expected. While the strengths of the wind and the amounts of rain are not very high, the prospect of damage and disruption is high owing to trees in full leaf and the wet soils following above average rainfalls over the past two weeks. In addition to this, the duration of winds is expected to last much longer than recent storms that lasted only a few hours.

One note of caution is for the possible development of a “sting jet” which can occur when extra-tropical storms come close to or in over Ireland, these fast moving ribbons of air develop on the southern flank of storms and deliver very strong winds across smaller regions of the storm’s predicted area. Sting-jets are hard to forecast and can develop without warning. Wednesday presents a good opportunity to secure items outdoors as the day will be bright and sunny with just light winds. Highs around 13c.

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