Are our societies prepared for today's climate-fueled extremes? A case study of hurricane Kirk (2025)

In early October 2024, Atlantic tropical cyclone Kirk followed an unusual trajectory. Rather than moving westward with the trade winds, it turned northward and then eastward toward Europe. Kirk made landfall in France, producing strong wind gusts, heavy rainfall, localized flooding, widespread treefall, and multiple fatalities. 

This presentation
We assess the potential consequences had Kirk made landfall in the Netherlands instead of France. Using a modelling-to-impact framework, ECMWF forecasts are dynamically downscaled with the convection-permitting HCLIM43-AROME model at 2.5 km resolution. Model output is analysed using relevant impact indicators and translated into damage cost estimates. Sensitivity experiments further show that a Netherlands-impacting Kirk responds strongly to sea-surface temperature (SST) conditions: warmer SSTs substantially intensify the storm and dramatically increase estimated damages.

Why it matters
Climate change preparedness commonly relies on CMIP6 GCM projections, combined with some form of regional downscaling (e.g. CORDEX). However, most GCMs do not adequately resolve storms like Kirk, and their projected changes are therefore largely absent. However examples like Kirk (2024) show that former tropical cyclones can already reach the Netherlands in today's climate. Combined with other recent European cases (e.g. Ophelia in 2017) and high-resolution future projections suggesting an increased likelihood of early-autumn landfalls, this highlights the need to consider such plausible but underrepresented extremes in preparedness planning.

Plausible
One week prior to landfall, ECMWF ensemble forecasts showed large uncertainty in Kirk’s track, with potential landfall locations ranging from Portugal to Ireland. Forecast intensities also varied widely. For several days, a scenario in which Kirk passed through the English Channel and impacted the Dutch coast remained plausible. Although this did not occur, examining such a scenario provides valuable insight into societal preparedness for rare but credible, potentially climate-fueled extremes. We argue that preparing for such events, even if not yet realized, is both relevant and necessary.

Dutch National Climate Scenarios
The Netherlands has a long-standing tradition of developing national climate scenarios, most recently updated in October 2023. These scenarios provide change factors, gridded fields, and time series used by stakeholders to stress-test applications across sectors. They are based on CMIP6 projections and derived through resampling of EC-Earth/RACMO GCM/RCM simulations. Due to resolution limitations, however, storms like Kirk are not well represented and are therefore largely absent from these scenarios. The present analysis of a Netherlands-impacting Kirk forms part of a KNMI report published in December 2025, which presents nine storyline cases of plausible extreme events in the current climate.