Ophelia is the 10th named storm of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season.
Hurricane Ophelia formed Wednesday afternoon (Oct. 11) in the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the 10th named storm for the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm’s current path has it headed toward Ireland.
The National Hurricane Center said Ophelia is now a Category 1 storm located about 760 miles southwest of the Azores. The storm, moving east at 3 miles per hour, has maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.
Forecasters expect Ophelia to continue to slowly move on a northeast track before accelerating toward Europe. The storm’s current path shows it maintaining hurricane strength as it moves through the Atlantic offshore Portugal, before reaching Ireland as a post-tropical or extratropical storm, which could still have wind speeds greater than 39 mph, sometime early Monday morning.
It is possible the storm could strengthen over the next 48 hours. On Wednesday afternoon, hurricane-force winds from Ophelia extended outward up to 25 miles from its center.
