  Extratropical cyclones are large-scale weather systems which are often the
source of extreme weather events in Northern Europe, often leading to mass
infrastructural damage and casualties. Such systems create a local vorticity
maxima which tracks across the Atlantic Ocean and from which can be determined
a climatology for the region. While there have been considerable advances in
developing algorithms for extracting the track and evolution of cyclones from
reanalysis datasets, the data record is relatively short. This justifies the
need for a statistical model to represent the more extreme characteristics of
these weather systems, specifically their intensity and the spatial variability
in their tracks. This paper presents a novel simulation-based approach to
modelling the lifecycle of extratropical cyclones in terms of both their tracks
and vorticity, incorporating various aspects of cyclone evolution and movement.
By drawing on methods from extreme value analysis, we can simulate more extreme
storms than those observed, representing a useful tool for practitioners
concerned with risk assessment with regard to these weather systems.
