Ex-hurricane Ophelia smashed into Ireland Monday morning with record-breaking gusts of up to 119 mph. The powerful extra-tropical storm — which has already killed two people and blacked-out some 360,000 Irish homes and businesses — is what’s left of the most powerful Eastern Atlantic hurricane ever seen.
“I think it’s unheard of for a hurricane to form this far east in the Atlantic and then take an almost south-to-north track which takes it directly across Ireland,” Prof. John Sweeney of Maynooth University told The Irish Times.
“This was the first major hurricane making it as far east in the Atlantic as it did,” climatologist Michael Mann told ThinkProgress via email. “Irma was the most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever to form as far east as it did. As ocean surface temperatures rise, the regions where tropical cyclones can form and intensify are expanding. This latest storm is consistent with that trend.”
As National Hurricane Center scientist Eric Blake tweeted, “Near-record warm waters south of the Azores helped fuel this extremely rare event.”
- Harvey, a once-in-25,000-year, “beyond anything experienced” storm
- Irma, the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Atlantic
- Maria, which exploded from a Category 1 storm to Category 5 superstorm in one day
What do all these powerful storms have in common?
Hurricanes “extract heat energy from the ocean to convert it to the power of wind, and the warmer the ocean is, the stronger a hurricane can get,” as meteorologist and former hurricane hunter Jeff Masters has explained. “So, scientists are confident that as we continue to heat up the oceans, we’re going to see more of these high-end perfect storms.”
Ophelia is the tenth tropical storm in a row that has turned into a hurricane, something that has never happened in the era of monitoring hurricanes with airplanes. And the official Atlantic hurricane season still has over a month remaining.
