Stormy weather forecast for Thursday as hurricane Kirk just misses the Netherlands
The Netherlands can expect strong winds and heavy downpours on Thursday, the KNMI warns. This is due to hurricane Kirk, which is currently moving across the Atlantic Ocean. Kirk won’t be a hurricane anymore by the time it hits Western Europe, and it won’t hit the Netherlands directly, but it will still bring very stormy weather.
Over the weekend, the National Hurricane Center in the United States projected that Kirk would be a tropical storm when it hits the Netherlands directly on Wednesday night. The new update is that the tropical storm will miss the Netherlands, but hit Belgium, France, and Germany. Tropical storms have a wind range of 62 to 118 kilometers per hour.
The latest calculations have Kirk making landfall above western France via the north of Spain on Wednesday evening. The tropical storm will then set course for Germany and bring stormy weather to the Netherlands on Thursday.
It is still unclear how strong the winds will be in the Netherlands on Thursday, and how much rain will fall. That depends on the exact route the storm will take and the various weather models do not yet provide a clear picture, the KNMI said. But that there will be a lot of rain and wind seems clear. Maximums will also climb no higher than 10 degrees on Thursday.
It is rare that a hurricane that originated near the Caribbean reaches Europe. According to the KNMI, climate change makes it easier for hurricanes to swerve our way instead of towards the U.S. The intensity of storms is also increasing.
