Tropical storm Gordon fades as it heads for Britain

Tropical storm Gordon, downgraded from a hurricane, faded as it skimmed past Spain and Portugal before heading to the British Isles, officials said today.

One policeman was taken to hospital with a slight head injury, a police spokesman said.

Some gusts of wind in the region of Galicia had reached 100mph said Angel Rivera, a spokesman for Spain’s National Weather Institute.

“It arrived weakened and later than predicted, blowing down trees and electricity posts, causing a fire in Lavacolla, a north-eastern town of Galicia and cutting off power supply to some areas,” said Rivera.

Weather forecasters had feared that Gordon might link up violently with another large, cold stream of air and cloud in the Atlantic, leading to a major storm, said Rivera.

“That potentially dangerous process, which we call cyclogenesis, fortunately didn’t happen,” said Rivera.

Rivera said that Gordon was now a swirling cloud and wind mass some 10 miles tall, heading to Britain.