Hurricane Ophelia, now a Category 2 storm, is the 10th hurricane in this Atlantic storm season. But rather than follow the pack and travel first west, then north, then northeast, circling the Atlantic one way or another, Ophelia is going its own way. First it meandered westward, then this week turned northwest.
Currently, early forecasts suggest it will approach Ireland on Monday—not making landfall as a hurricane per se, but packing hurricane-strength winds. (These are very early forecasts with lots of potential to change over the intervening days, as both the Irish and British weather agencies note.)
Ophelia's destination isn't unprecedented, but the storm is still raising eyebrows, says Reindert Haarsma, a climate scientist at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. "A number of
