Hurricane Kirk to impact UK/IE?

Ex-Hurricane Kirk (now Major Hurricane Kirk) may impact the UK and Ireland as its remnants reach our shores by the end of next week.

Major Hurricane Kirk is currently churning away in the Atlantic at a Category 3 storm, though may further strengthen in the coming days.

However Kirk is what we term a "fish storm", meaning that it's remaining out at sea and not posing any threat to land as a tropical system.

There are signs that Kirk could take a turn north-eastwards later down the line though, navigating towards the UK and Ireland.

While it is not physically possible for our latitudes to bear receipt of a tropical system, due to it losing tropical status as it ventures away from the high sea surface temperatures above 26.5°C, we can still experience remnants of ex-tropical storms.

These remnants can still be strong mid-latitude storms, producing hurricane-strength winds in some instances.

There is considerable uncertainty in Kirk's track and whether the storm will end up affecting our weather pattern though, largely dependent on how the system interacts with the jet stream.

However if Kirk, or future ex-Hurricane Kirk, does venture our way, there could be some strong winds and heavy pulses of rain in store for some of us.