After the powerful storm once known as Hurricane Lee traveled 3,000 miles across the Atlantic toward New England and Canada, where it made landfall Saturday, the storm’s remnants have made one more trip: to the coasts of Britain and Ireland .
The storm system is helping to usher in traditional autumn weather across Britain this week with fresh, windswept rain on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Met Office, Britain’s national weather service, issued a yellow weather warning for heavy rain across much of Wales and northwest England. “Be aware of the potential for flooding and travel disruptions in these areas” on Tuesday and Wednesday, the forecasters said.
Rain will fall in areas that are used to wet weather, said Alex Deakin, a meteorologist at the Met Office, but because tropical air mixes with this storm, it will be wetter than usual. “It’s more loaded, so it rains more than a typical low-pressure system,” he said.
Deakin said the storm followed an “unprecedented” heat wave in Britain, where temperatures were above 86 degrees Fahrenheitor 30 degrees Celsius, for seven consecutive days ending on September 10. “Other than that, it’s been a big change,” she said.
It is not uncommon for a storm to cross the Atlantic.
The Atlantic-dominated weather pattern is not unheard of in Britain and Ireland.
In October 2017, the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia hit Britain and Ireland, where three people They died from falling trees.
In October 1987, a weather phenomenon known as the “Big Storm” brought gale-force winds to parts of Britain, with some gusts reaching 100 miles per hour. Eighteen people died in the storm, according to to the meteorological office. Thousands of homes were without electricity for more than 24 hours and some 15 million trees They were shot down.
In the mid-latitudes, storm systems typically move eastward in an area known as westerlies. A hurricane will form in the tropics, where the water is warm enough to power a tropical system and where the directing currents are predominantly westward. When a hurricane turns north, it will inevitably become caught in westerly winds. This means it will head east towards Europe.
However, when a storm like Lee As it advances over the colder waters of the North Atlantic, it no longer gets the fuel it needs from the ocean. For the storm to maintain its strength, it has to transition into a typical weather system, which gets its energy from the collision of cold air masses and warm air masses. Sometimes these storms are strong enough to sustain hurricane-force winds, as Lee did when he made landfall in Canada last weekend. The storm has since weakened and as it leaves Canada on Monday, it will speed up and approach Ireland and Britain on Tuesday.
Lee is not the only storm that could have a predominant effect on the weather in Ireland and Britain this week. Hurricane Nigelwhich is located in the central Atlantic, appears to be on a trajectory that will bring it closer later in the week.
Mr Deakin, of the Met Office, said Nigel was “still quite lively and will potentially bring us another spell of rain and wind at the weekend”.