This is by far the largest recorded storm to make it so far east in the north Atlantic.
The people of the British Isles are now enduring powerful winds, damaged electrical lines, and massive coastal floods when Hurricane Lorenzo rolls in from the Atlantic before hitting Britain. It is already set to arrive in Ireland as a post-tropical cyclone.
The Met Office has issued orange and yellow weather warnings ahead of the storm's arrival on the British Isles. The Irish Meteorological Service has announced that if rainfall exceeds 50mm, parts of the west and north will experience flooding.
The counties Sligo, Clare, Kerry, and Mayo are now expected to experience the worst of this storm.
Lorenzo is the largest storm to hit Europe in 20 years. It boasts hurricane force winds that stretch out to 177km from the center and tropical storm force winds that span 555km.
Hurricanes the size of Lorenzo are very rare, especially so far north and east in the Atlantic basin. Lorenzo is producing huge swells in the North Atlantic that were felt along the eastern coasts of the United States, in the Bahamas, and even in parts of western Europe.
The hurricane swept along the western edge of the Azores, having knocked down hundreds of trees and cut out major power sources on the worst-affected island of Flores, where Portugal's meteorological service predicted waves could reach up to 25 meters.
"This might be the strongest [hurricane] in the last 20 years," Carlos Neves, head of the Azores' civil protection, said.
Europe hasn't had a hurricane reach its shores in over 20 years, mainly because of its location. Strong storms usually form off the coast of West Africa, where warm waters near the Equator and high humidity create columns of rapidly rising rotating air, which is the perfect recipe for a storm. The warmer, moist air that the system picks up, the stronger it becomes—this is the reason why tropical storms can quickly grow into a full-on hurricane as it marches across the Atlantic.
Normally, hurricanes are propelled on a westward track by the trade winds, caused by the Earth's rotation—it is the reason why Europe as well as the West Coast of the US rarely experience full-on hurricanes.
Business Insider says that remnants of about 30 hurricanes have reached Europe. However, by the time these remnants make their landfall, they've already downsized from a hurricane force to a tropical storm or weaker.
Lorenzo is now the exception to Europe's long record of being hurricane immune. It is set to weaken to an extratropical storm after hitting Azores, before it moves north on its trajectory toward Ireland and the UK at the end of the week.
The public has been informed that the swells created by Lorenzo are spreading through the North Atlantic basin, and its effects can be seen on the eastern side of the United States, the Atlantic provinces of Canada, the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, some areas of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, some regions of the European coast, and the Azores.
These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.
