Ophelia Pummels Ireland in Atlantic; Super Typhoon Could Strike Japan in Pacific

CBN News spoke with WeatherBELL Meteorologist Joe Bastardi about Hurricane Ophelia in the Atlantic and Tropical Storm Lan in the Pacific. The latter could become a super typhoon. Watch the interview above. 

With wind gusts of up to 80 miles per hour on Monday, the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia pounded Ireland.

The storm took the lives of at least three people, prevented planes from flying, closed schools and resulted in widespread power outages.

Ophelia has been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone. Even so, Ireland's National Emergency Coordination Group on Severe Weather did not mince words when it warned the storm is still "unprecedented, with serious life-threatening conditions."

CBN News spoke with the chief forecaster for WeatherBELL Analytics, Joe Bastardi, about the storm.

"Ophelia is now more or less a regular North Atlantic storm; it's now almost to the north of Ireland, moving rapidly northeast, with being absorbed into the Westerlies as we say," he told CBN News.

"Interestingly enough, Ophelia was not as bad as Debbie in 1961, which hit Ireland with wind gusts of 113 miles an hour," he continued.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar also referenced Hurricane Debbie when talking about Ophelia.

"It is a very dangerous storm (Ophelia)," Varadkar said. "The last time there was a storm (Debbie) this severe, 11 lives were lost."

Authorities reported some hurricane-force gusts of Ophelia 30 years to the day of another intense storm that pummeled the British Isles. The "Great Storm of 1987" beat up southern England.

"A hurricane season like this where you have a lot of action going on, one of them got caught up in that area and took off to the northeast and gave them the weather that they just had," Bastardi said.

Bastardi went on to say that it's not unprecedented for a storm like Ophelia to end up in that part of the globe.

"As I said before, Debbie was a worse storm, and in 1966, Hurricane Faith went way north of Ireland, believe it or not, and they tracked the remnants of Faith all the way to the North Pole," he said.

Bastardi also looked ahead in discussing this year's active hurricane season.

"We may see one more try to come out of the Caribbean, but the bulk of the United States action is certainly over now," he told CBN News. "I can't rule (out) something trying to come out of the Caribbean in November."

"Back in 1985, we had Juan at the end of October; then Hurricane Kate, a Category 3, came into the Gulf of Mexico in 1985 in November," Bastardi continued. 

"So you don't ever want to close things out too early, especially since some of the overall weather patterns are very similar to years when there were late storms," he said.

The Weather Channel reports that the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season is now the seventh most active in history. The season lasts until November 30.

Bastardi also told CBN News to keep an eye on a storm in the Southwest Pacific - one he called a "news-making typhoon hitting Japan or threatening Japan later on this week."

"That typhoon is going to get active and try to go toward Japan," he said.

AccuWeather reports there's a possibility that Tropical Storm Lan could become a super typhoon between Friday and Sunday. A super typhoon is equal to a strong Category 4 or 5 hurricane.

Mainland Japan could take a direct hit sometime between Sunday evening and Tuesday, according to AccuWeather.