Met Office warns that Hurricane Kirk could bring heavy rain and strong winds to UK as it crosses Atlantic

It’s more bad weather news for people across the country after areas were hit with heavy downpours resulting in widespread flooding over the last week.

Hurricane Kirk has developed into a Category 3 storm and is currently making its way across the Atlantic. While won’t hit the UK as ‘Hurricane Kirk’, it may have an impact on our weather next week.

Met Office Deputy Chief Meteorologist Tony Wisson said: “Hurricane Kirk is currently in the tropical Atlantic. It is expected to move north into cooler waters, where it will lose a lot of its strength, but maintain its identity as a moderately deep low pressure system.

“There are complex processes involved when a hurricane undergoes what is known as ‘extra tropical transition’. This results in a lot of variability in the forecast, which means that predictability is low at longer lead times. Therefore, confidence in any one scenario is very low.

“There are a few apparent scenarios. One scenario suggests that this low pressure system could come close to, or even cross, the UK by Wednesday or Thursday next week. This would lead to heavy rain and strong winds in places. Another scenario is for the low pressure system to stay further west in the mid-Atlantic, keeping much of the associated rain and wind away from the UK. Other possibilities are also apparent, but we need to wait until we have more information, to determine which scenario will win out.”

There is hope for drier weather for the remainder of this week, but it will turn wetter and windier from Friday into the weekend. Wisson said: “After a drier interlude, the weather will gradually get wetter and windier through the weekend, as high pressure drifts away to the east and is slowly replaced with low pressure, bringing increasing amounts of wind and rain.

“This transition will initially affect western parts of UK, starting in northwestern areas on Friday but then more widely in western areas later on Saturday. These fronts will shift eastwards through the weekend, resulting in rain reaching most areas of the UK by Sunday. The highest rainfall totals through the weekend are most likely in the west and southwest, and generally lower further east.”