Uh-oh! Heads up Ireland!

[iscooterliberally]

It looks like you're getting a hurricane next week.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at2.shtml?cone#contents

[malaise]

1. A Cat 1 is trouble for places that don't get hurricanes often

Stay safe folks

[OnDoutside]

9. Thanks ! :)

I'm off to the South of France in the morning, but due back on Monday when its supposed to be hitting.

[Denzil_DC]

2. Here in Scotland, the weather's been almost unremitting shite,

well, for most of the summer, but particularly the last two or three weeks.

We often get the lively dregs of weather patterns as they sweep up continental America and across the Atlantic, with a few days' delay. I often wonder why some folks here get surprised when we have a dank/stormy spell. They must not follow the US weather news. It happens like clockwork.

[iscooterliberally]

3. It's been the same down here in South Florida for the last couple of months.

Sorry to send that bad weather your way. I hope the folks in Ireland prepare. I have been through decades of hurricanes and NOAA is pretty accurate with their forecasting. Stay safe up there!

[Denzil_DC]

5. Well, the wind speeds they're talking about at the moment don't sound too unusual for us.

It's the gusts that usually do the damage, plus any accompanying heavy rain. The trees are shedding their leaves or well ready to now, so that may help. We've a fairly windy climate, so most stuff that's loose or could blow over usually has by now. I'll be keeping wary eye on our chimney, though - it's cracked and the landlord's taking his time getting it mended.

The last REALLY destructive one we had was in 2011, Friedhelm, popularly named Hurricane Bawbag:

On 8 December, winds reached up to 165 mph (265 km/h) at elevated areas, with sustained wind speeds of up to 80 mph (135 km/h) reported across populous areas.

That was followed a month or so later by Cyclone Andrea, a storm with even higher wind speeds.

The most spectacular are "sting jet" cyclones - which both of those were.

But a gust during a storm a year or so ago destroyed a very heavy sizable fence in our garden and rearranged the furniture a bit, so I'm not meaning to sound blase, but it's the frequency with which they're coming nowadays rather than their sheer strength that's most disturbing.

[iscooterliberally]

7. The frequency of these storms concerns me too.

I was in Boston back when Sandy hit New Jersey. We were staying in a wood frame house that was built in the late 1800s. We just caught the outskirts of that storm and that old house was creaking and swaying in the wind. I hope Boston never gets hit by a major hurricane. So many of those homes will be destroyed. It sounds like you have a lot more experience with high winds. I had never heard of sting jet cyclones. Thanks for the info. I learned something new today!

[Denzil_DC]

10. You're welcome.

Like most Brits, I could medal at the Olympics in droning on about the weather!

The frequency and turbulence is key, though - it's what was predicted a couple of decades or more ago when the future prospects of climate change were being studied. Boil a kettle, you get turbulence, and that energy has to eventually go somewhere. Meanwhile, a relatively chilly day in July, and its "Durr hurr global warming meh."

[dubyadiprecession]

4. Ireland is surrounded by water, big water, ocean water...

water with mermaids and turtles that bite tootsies!

[tavernier]

6. A few years back we had a hurricane in the Keys

that followed me over to Ireland. There are actually some scruffy, what we call scrub palms, in some areas if the country, where the rain is frequent and not freezing cold.

[OnDoutside]

8. As we say in Ireland, tis a bit breezy !!!

[malaise]

11. Ha