Hurricane Lorenzo is set to lash the Azores on Wednesday morning, when the large storm could bring winds gusting upwards of 90 mph, several inches of rain, dangerous surf, and 40 foot waves just offshore.
From there, the hurricane is expected to continue north, becoming a powerful subtropical or mid-latitude cyclone before riling Scotland and the United Kingdom on Friday into the weekend. In between, wave heights over the open ocean will approach up to 100 feet. It’s all part of Lorenzo’s final act after having shattered intensity records as an errant top-tier storm unusually far east.
Daylight dawned Saturday on a Category 3 Lorenzo, forecast to slowly weaken throughout the day. Instead, Lorenzo did the opposite, reaching Category 4 status before attaining Category 5 classification briefly overnight Saturday into Sunday. It was an extremely unusual move by the cyclone, which underwent rapid intensification for the second time in three days. It’s the sixth Category 5 Atlantic storm in four years.
Lorenzo set a slew of records, becoming the strongest storm that far northeast in the Atlantic. It stands alone, 600 miles outside of bounds when compared with where other Category 5s had formed in the past. It’s spent more energy than any other recorded storm at its longitude, and it’s not finished.
Lorenzo is currently a Category 2 storm with 100 mph winds, and the National Hurricane Center says it’s “maintaining its strength as it heads towards the Azores.” It says “only slow weakening is expected during the next 48 hours,” meaning Lorenzo is likely to bring hurricane conditions to the islands.
The Azores aren’t a stranger to hurricanes. They’ve had a number of close passes and occasional direct hits, including the landfall of an unnamed Category 2 near Ponta Delgada in 1926. Most systems have degenerated into extratropical cyclones by the time they arrive, though in recent years Ophelia and Leslie passed near the archipelago as low-end hurricanes.
Lorenzo’s wind field is unusually large, with hurricane-force winds extending some 90 miles from the center. Hurricane warnings are up for the central and western Azores, while tropical storm warnings cover Sao Miguel and Santa Maria.
By Friday, Lorenzo is expected to transition to an extratropical system. Most forecasts predict that Lorenzo’s mid-latitude cyclone will reach Ireland or the United Kingdom, bringing a significant windstorm.
While winds will weaken as the storm encounters cooler water and ingests drier air, gusts to at least 60 mph are possible if the system comes ashore.
“At the moment the strongest winds are expected in western Ireland, with a risk of coastal gales developing in Northern Ireland and western Scotland on Thursday and Wales and south-west England on Friday,” Dan Suri, chief meteorologist at the UK Met Office, told Ireland’s Derry Journal.
There are also some indications on computer models that a “sting jet” may develop as dry air flowing over tip of the wrapped-up cyclone helps drag very strong winds to the surface. If this were to occur, a narrow swath of stronger winds may occur, as was the case during Ophelia in 2017 and Leslie last year.
An inch or two of rainfall is also possible in Ireland and the United Kingdom, with the heaviest amounts in western areas.
Pending Lorenzo’s eventual and overdue demise, there are two other systems – one in the Caribbean and one north of Hispaniola – that are being monitored but are unlikely to develop.