How rare is it that much of the UK experiences a hurricane

How rare is it for the UK to receive a hurricane their way?

I don't believe that the UK has ever experienced a hurricane, technically. The relatively cold waters of the Atlantic to the west of the UK weaken tropical cyclones well before reaching the UK. Now on relatively rare occasions a tropical cyclone moving over the cold waters of the north Atlantic will transition into a powerful non-tropical low, which then can move across the UK region bringing strong and maybe even hurricane force winds. It just is not technically a hurricane anymore because the system no longer has the required tropical characteristics.

A question of semantic, my friend! What is a hurricane?

Hurricanes appear when tropical cyclones west of the Cape Verde islands in the Atlantic, are over a sea that has a temperature in excess of 27 degrees Celsius. That's what we observe.

But the name hurricane (ouragan in French and orkan in Norwegian) is also given to any wind in excess of 64 knots or force 12 in the Beaufort scale. As such, there has been many hurricanes in UK. From memory, the Fastnet Race accident of 1979 had hurricane force wind and in 1987, I was on a French trawler in the Irish Sea, in February, we we suffered a Beaufort force 12 wind.

But if you are thinking of the hurricanes that are born west of the Cape Verde island, and turn around the Azores anticyclone, to become storms heading for UK, no, there isn't the same energy in them as when they were at lower latitudes.

Completely rare,
Actually I dont think we have even had a hurricane as such :)


(Scotland born and bred :) )