Hurricane Ophelia: 120,000 without power as monster storm hits
Source: Irish Times
Some 120,000 homes are without power on Monday as Hurricane Ophelia sweeps in over Ireland with damaging gusts and heavy rainfall.
Members of the public have been advised to stay inside and not to make unnecessary journeys as the worst storm the country has seen in more than 50 years passes over. Public transport services have been cancelled countrywide and there have been a series of road closures, including the M8 motorway.
As of 12 noon, approximately 120,000 electricity customers were without power, with the main areas impacted in the southern half of the country including Counties Kerry, Cork, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and Limerick. There are widerspread reports from the counties of fallen trees and blocked road with the extreme weather moves through the southwest and southeast.
The storm winds have hit the south-west and south Leinster and are moving quickly up across the country. Met Éireann is warning that violent and destructive gusts of 120km/h are expected countrywide and that winds could exceed these value in some exposed and coastal areas. It has reported gusts as high as 156 km/h at Roches Point in Cork .
Read more: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/hurricane-ophelia-120-000-without-power-as-monster-storm-hits-1.3257434
= new reply since forum marked as read
Technically, a hurricane is a strong cyclonic tropical storm in the west Atlantic.
In common terms, it refers to any storm with winds of Beaufort force 12 (74 mph) or higher.
Whether it's technically a hurricane or not doesn't have to do with wind speed/destructiveness, it's to do with location. Very strong storms with "hurricane"-force winds can occur outside the tropics and western Atlantic. In the north-west Pacific they're called typhoons. In the Indian Ocean and South Pacific they're just called cyclones. In the west of Scotland, they're called a good laundry drying day, a "two-pegger".
Technically, yes, Ophelia is a post-tropical cyclone, just because of its location. That doesn't make it less destructive than a hurricane. Take a look at some of these wind speeds recorded today in the UK:
