"Another year! Another deadly blow! Another mighty Empire overthrown!" Thus sighed a dejected William Wordsworth as he recollected his emotions with rather less tranquillity than usual. As it happens, deadly blows become topical in a weather context at this time every year. The reason is that although the Atlantic and Caribbean hurricane season lasts from late June well into October, it is mainly in late August and September that the really vicious ones occur, and Weather Eye, as always, takes the broad view and asks: how does this affect us?
Hurricanes develop over the warm ocean just north of the Equator, and usually move west-wards at first before turning north or north-east. But as it moves further north into a cooler environment, a hurricane gradually loses energy.
Some fade away altogether; others retain a semblance of their identity as they are subsumed into conventional North Atlantic depressions. By the time they reach Ireland, none of them is a hurricane in the proper sense of the word.
Many of the stormy spells that occur around this time of year, however, have their origins in rejuvenated hurricanes. Hurricane Charley in 1986, for example, is remembered all too well in these parts, and even more dramatic was Hurricane Debbie, who reached our shores on September 16th, 1961.
Debbie had been born in the balmy Caribbean some five or six days previously. As with all hurricanes, its intensity abated somewhat as it crossed the colder waters of the North Atlantic, but by the time the storm reached Ireland, it had a new lease of life. It caused great damage, bringing winds to our western shores with gusts in excess of 100 m.p.h.
This year's hurricanes, some already dead and gone, others yet to be conceived, and alternating girl and boy as usual, are Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fabian, Grace, Henri, Isabel, Juan, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor and Wanda.
At present the one to watch is little Erika. As I write on Sunday afternoon, Erika is hovering ominously close to the Azores, and moving east. Over the next few days it seems likely she will tend to move in a more northerly direction, and it is not impossible that before the week is out she may decide to come a little closer to us than most of us would wish.
Of course, by then Erika will not be a hurricane at all - a mere extratropical depression. But given the tendency for volatility in depressions born of former hurricanes, we would just as soon she stayed as far away as possible.