Hmm... "ex-Ophelia" sounds like some hideous disease... But it isn't. Good agreement from most of the global weather models this morning of the track of Hurricane Ophelia which is currently sitting patiently out in the Mid Atlantic causing no harm to anything except making few fishes dizzy.
For the next day or two very little happens. Ophelia may strengthen a little and then weaken a little as she encounters various amounts of shear and also the effect of churning up the waters in the Atlantic and introducing cooler air in at the surface of the system. Normally, hurricanes would dissipate the moment they reach cooler Atlantic waters below 27c, but Ophelia is sitting in the middle of a cool upper low pressure system which means that the temperature gradient between the top of her clouds and the base remains rather high and allows further convection to develop within the system.
Into Saturday and a big old upper trough swings in from the Atlantic and this picks up Ophelia and sends her Northeast towards the British Isles. At this point she is still a hurricane, but as she moves Northeast she encounters all sorts of hurdles like increasing shear, much cooler waters and a strong baroclinic frontal zone which all work to remove the tropical characteristics of Ophelia and turn her into what we call an extra-tropical baroclinic low.
Still lots of uncertainty on the final track of the system. At the moment, the models favour bringing nothing more than some strong winds to the rugged West coast of Ireland. But, it's worth keeping an eye on this system over the next day or two as until Ophelia interacts with that upper trough, that interaction will be dictate the speed, intensity and track of Ophelia as she heads North.
A full discussion on Ophelia is on the site today for you to enjoy...
METEOROLOGIST : MARSH
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