The remnants of Hurricane Gonzalo tore through the British Isles yesterday with high winds and showers. There is nothing that unusual about spells of wet and windy weather in the autumn, but the past three months have seen an unusual number of the remains of tropical weather systems ending up in Britain.
When hurricanes move northwards from the tropics they eventually sweep over the colder seas of the north Atlantic. Once the water temperature falls below 26C (79F), the hurricanes run out of “fuel” and die out. The warm humid remains of those old hurricanes, however, can get picked up in the jet stream, and re-energise into quite strong storms as they sweep across the Atlantic, although nothing like as severe as the original hurricanes.