Britain certainly isn’t a country known for the sun, but the weather has been especially dreary recently.
September was the wettest on record for some counties, with regions seeing 300% more than average after days of yellow weather warnings.
Nationwide, 114.1mm of rain soaked the UK, 25% more than usual, according to the Met Office. And it seems October will be more of the same, meteorologists previously told Metro, though will start slightly drier before becoming unsettled… again.
In the world of weather forecasts, things can change without a moment’s notice.
As reliable and precise as forecasts often are, the Earth is one big wobbly blob of rain, wind, clouds and atmospheric pressure. After all, most weather forecasts run up to 10 days or so, up from the three a few decades ago.
Hurricane Kirk, currently churning 80mph winds through the North Atlantic Ocean, is about to make forecasting the weather even trickier.
And it might even turn into a storm once it crashes into Britain.
Kirk formed about 1,070 miles west of the Cabo Verde Islands and is modelled to boomerang west-northwest and head north into the middle of the Atlantic.
American weather officials classed it on Tuesday as a Category 1 hurricane, meaning its winds could damage buildings.
It’s expected to strengthen to a category 3 hurricane tomorrow before weakening from around Monday as it enters cooler waters. Warm ocean temperatures fuel tropical storms, with one study finding that human-induced climate change means hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean are now twice as likely to grow from a weak storm into a major hurricane in less than a day.
Kirk is the 11th named storm to form in the Atlantic this year, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration up to 25 in 2024 – a worryingly above-normal amount.
The hurricane is on track to slam into the UK, Jim N R Dale, a senior meteorologist at the British Weather Services, the nation’s oldest independent meteorological company.
‘Not as a hurricane of course,’ he stresses to Metro ‘but very possibly as the first named storm of the season, “Storm Ashley”.’
‘It’s very early stages in terms of intensity and steerage but all eyes will be on Kirk as he wanders around the mid-Atlantic looking to carry a free lift of the jet stream,’ explains Kirk, referring to the band of strong winds blowing from west to east that have immense sway over the weather.
If all goes to plan, the remains of Kirk as the cyclone dissipates will be in the ‘UK or northern France next Thursday’.
‘The very latest indicates the centre moves over Northern Ireland then into southern Scotland; earlier this morning it was more aimed towards Cornwall,’ he adds.
‘Things will slip and slide between now and then, hence the watching brief…. noting that Kirk won’t be Kirk by then, Storm Ashley or nameless!’
As Dale said, it’s very early days to know for sure where Kirk will wind up. If the low-pressure system strays further west, for example, the hurricane won’t really impact the UK weather too much.
The UK was torn apart by a dozen storms during the last storm season, from September 2024 to August.
This was the most storms the UK has seen since at least 2015, according to the Met Office, each turning the UK into a patchwork of red, amber and yellow weather warnings for wind and rain. Researchers say climate change made the recent wave of stormy weather and exceptionally high rainfall in Europe twice as likely.
But if a storm does erupt in the UK as meteorologists like Dale say, it probably won’t be called Storm Ashley.
A storm is named if weather officials feel it could be especially disruptive and damaging, so concise public health messaging needs to be issued.
Twenty-one names for any storms that happen from September to late August arepicked and go alphabetically – so the first storm of the season in always begins with A.
In this case, Ashley would be the next. Storms tend to be named after real people who suggest names to the Met Office and its Irish and Dutch counterparts, Met Éireann and KNMI.
But because Kirk is a weather system that originated in the Atlantic, this naming convention goes out the window, Andrea Bishop, a spokesperson for the Met Office, says.
‘If a weather system affecting the UK is the remnants of a hurricane that had moved across the Atlantic, the name would not be changed and would instead be referred to as ‘ex-hurricane Kirk’, for example,’ she says.
Neither would it be called, say, ‘Storm Kirk’.
Hurricanes are a type of tropical storm, a circular storm that forms over warm waters with very low air pressure in the centre. They only technically form in the North Atlantic, the northeastern Pacific, the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico.
So whatever’s left of Kirk if and when it reaches the UK isn’t actually a hurricane as rather than be powered by warm ocean air, it’s the clash of tropical and the cold polar air more common at our higher latitudes keeping it spinning – hence the ‘ex’.
This entire process is complicated, to say the least, which is why knowing whether Hurricane Kirk will even get anywhere close to the UK, let alone cause a storm, is hard to predict.
However, Dale said that if the ex-hurricane becomes ‘powerful enough when approaching our shores’ that British, Irish or Dutch weather services decide to rename it, it would be named Storm Ashley.
As always, it’s best to check with the Met Office for the latest weather warnings and advice.
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