‘Danger to life’ warning issued in UK with Storm Ciarán approaching
Storm Ciarán is nearly here – and the UK is being told to brace itself for heavy rain and blistering wind that poses a ‘risk to life’.
The Met Office has issued a flurry of yellow weather warnings today – mainly across England’s south coast – on top of two amber alerts for tomorrow.
While yellow weather warnings are the lowest forecasters can issue – so ‘some disruption’ is expected – amber means there is a ‘potential risk to life’.
Portsmouth and the surrounding area will likely see travel disruption from 5am to 9am today as a yellow rain and wind warning is in place. Brief power cuts are also expected.
Two other yellow warnings from 9pm to 11.59pm for ‘very strong and potentially damaging winds’ blanket most of England’s South West, South and South East (London included), and southern Wales.
The warning for the northwesterly winds also includes the coast of the East of England, with the Met Office warning of flying debris that could pose a danger to life.
Gales blowing at up to 85mphs and torrential rainfall are slated for tomorrow, with the most exposed English Channel coastal spots bearing the brunt.
Two amber alerts for powerful winds across the region warn of power cuts, debris hurtling in the air, damage to buildings, travel chaos and intense waves lashing coastal homes and blowing debris onto shorelines.
The national weather service said: ‘It will stay unsettled and, at times very windy, over the coming days.
‘This unsettled period peaks with Storm Ciarán, which crosses southern UK on Thursday.’
Yellow warnings are in place from Wednesday and Friday.
Across the UK, the Environment Agency has issued more than 27 flood warnings, meaning floods are ‘expected’, as well as 114 flood alerts.
The Met Office deputy chief meteorologist, Chris Almond, said: ‘Winds associated with Storm Ciarán are likely to gust to 80mph along the south coast of England, with a small risk of somewhere exposed seeing 90mph, and winds could even gust up to 50 or 60mph farther inland.
‘This deep, low-pressure system will also bring heavy rain to much of the UK, but the heaviest rain is expected in southern and western areas, with 20 to 25mm quite widely across the region but up to 40 to 60mm potentially over higher ground.
‘Heavy and persistent rain will fall on to the already saturated ground, bringing a risk of further impacts such as flooding in areas that are already struggling to clean up from the heavy rainfall we have seen over the last week or so.
‘There are possible gusts of 80 to 90mph in some exposed southern areas. It’s probably quite a nasty storm, this one.’
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