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| Coastal Watches/Warnings and 5-Day Forecast Cone for Storm Center. Image NOAA |
The remnants of Category 4 Hurricane Gonzalo, which is presently
packing 220kph winds in the Caribbean, is forecast to track close to
Ireland early next week. Forecasters say however, that the system will have lost much of its energy by the time it crosses the Atlantic.
The
US National Hurricane Center, which monitors storm activity in the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, says the centre of the system is likely to
track to the northwest of the country on Monday night.
By then the
system will have become an ex-tropical storm but winds could still reach
up to 100kph in parts of the west and northwest of the country. The
system will also be accompanied by a period of heavy rain as it passes
to the northwest of Ireland.
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| Ogimet.com GFS output for midnight on Monday night |
Met Éireann is warning of wet and windy weather everywhere on Monday night.
Meanwhile,
Long range forecaster for Irish Weather Online, Peter O'Connell is
forecasting "an interval of blustery weather (remnants of Gonzalo)
overnight Monday into Tuesday morning, with the moderate daytime
westerly winds increasing to near gale force at times."
O'Donnell
says there will be gusts of up to 70 km/hr by daytime but as high as
110 km/hr in exposed northern areas by late Monday evening through early
morning Tuesday. Westnorthwest winds will gust to between 60 and 100kph
during Tuesday.
Ahead of the arrival of the ex-hurricane,
forecasters are warning of a large swell along western and southern
Irish coasts as a result of a large cyclone to the west of Ireland (see first image below). Next
week's system is not expected to create a significant swell.
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| EUMETSAT image from Wednesday showing a large swirl of low pressure to the west of Ireland |
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NOAA wind intensity chart
NOAA wind intensity chart
NOAA wind intensity chart
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| CAT 4 Hurricnae Gonzola as captured from space by NOAA today |
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