Have you ever heard of a hurricane hitting Ireland?

Well, the Emerald Isle just came pretty close to being smacked by a tropical storm.

The 2009 hurricane season has been relatively quiet, but the Internet was abuzz today with weather bloggers furiously typing about the whereabouts of Tropical Storm Grace.

Late Sunday night, Grace had reached tropical storm strength, and by 5 a.m. on Monday, its winds were up to 70 mph.

Then at 11 a.m., the weather advisory said Grace was about 575 miles southwest of Cork, Ireland, of all places!

Luckily, U.S. hurricane forecasters now say that the storm will weaken over the next 24 hours, and will likely be absorbed by a weather front off of Ireland on Tuesday morning as it advances across the Atlantic.

Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time a tropical storm has traveled so far north.

Last year, Tropical Storm Laura formed a few hundred miles west of the Azores, and in 2005, Hurricane Vince struck Spain.