THERE’S A HIGH degree of uncertainty regarding how Hurricane Lorenzo will progress as it crosses the Atlantic and it could take up to 48 hours to get a better idea of what impact it has if or when it reaches Ireland, Met Éireann has said. 

Speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland, head of forecasting Evelyn Cusack said Lorenzo will have transitioned to an extra-tropical storm in the coming days with the possibility it could bring strong winds and heavy rain. 

Lorenzo was upgraded to a category 5 hurricane at the weekend – with maximum winds of 250km/h – but that has already been downgraded to a category four storm.

It is expected to weaken further as it tracks north-eastwards to the Azores to a category one or two storm, Cusack said.

The storm’s path is then uncertain but it is possible that it will reach Ireland towards the latter half of this week.

“It’s all to play for at this stage,” she said. 

Cusack added that officials from Met Éireann would be speaking to colleagues at the Met Office in the UK and others as they all track the storm’s progress.

Separately, there are two Status Yellow rainfall warnings in place for 10 counties today.

One of these came into effect in the early hours of the morning for Cork and Kerry and remains in place until 4pm today. 

A further warning applies to Dublin, Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Tipperary and Waterford from 9am to 8pm.

In both cases, 25-35mm of rain is forecast with a risk of spot flooding.