#Surfing - Big wave surfers on the west coast are at the ready today (9 December) as a strong northwest groundswell bears down on Ireland, bringing with it waves of up to 50 feet across the Atlantic.
According to Surfer Today, the storm heading our way has a particularly wide eye, and a fetch - the area of water over which the winds are blowing - larger than the whole of the United Kingdom.
Indeed, it should bring to mind the infamous 'Black Swell' that swept in with Storm Christine almost a year ago, attracting the cream of Europe's surfing crop to the big wave hotspots of the northwest.
However, Richie Fitzgerald of Bundoran's Surfworld tells the Irish Examiner that the wind direction will put paid to any quality surfing action this week.
For the rest of us, meanwhile, the increasing wind speeds - gusting up to 110km/h off Irish coasts - have prompted Met Éireann to issue a Status Orange weather warning for northwestern counties, as RTÉ News reports.
There will be little escape for the rest of the country, either, with a Status Yellow warning in effect for forecast gusts of over 70km/h till Thursday morning (11 December).
