Storm Ciarán UK: New storm set to batter parts of UK after Babet | UK News
Yet another wave of heavy rain and strong winds is expected to batter parts of the UK, as the newly-named Storm Ciarán edges closer.
Only a week after Storm Babet dumped tens of inches of rain and led to the deaths of at least seven people, even more miserable weather has been forecast.
The Met Office has put in place yellow warnings up and down the UK for four straight days, with ‘strong winds and heavy rain’ slated.
The weather service today named next week’s storm as Ciarán, with the deep area of low pressure pelting southern parts of England and Wales on Thursday.
Ciarán will bring gusts of 80mph winds to areas along the south coast of England, with a small risk of some more exposed areas seeing wind speeds of up to 90mph.
Some areas will see up to 60mm of rain bucketing down, Met Office deputy chief meteorologist Chris Almond said. (A typical November sees about 123mm of rain.)
‘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 60 mph further inland,’ Almond said.
‘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 onto 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.’
Britain will become a patchwork of yellow warnings next week, as days of wet and windy weather pave the way for Ciarán.
Yellow warnings are the lowest alert the Met Office can issue and tell Brits the weather will cause some ‘low-level impacts’, such as travel delays.
In England tomorrow, disruptive rain is expected from 12am to 6pm in southern and southeast England. The northeast will see the same from 12am to 3am.
There will be a short break from the miserable downpours on Tuesday before picking up again on Wednesday, with a yellow rain alert for large swathes of southwest and southern England as Storm Ciarán creeps in.
The storm will deepen on Thursday, with Ciarán ‘likely to bring further disruption’ in the south.
The Met Office urged residents to prepare for torrential rain that could flood homes, cut off power and other essential services, and leave communities isolated as ‘fast-flowing’ water clogs roads.
A second yellow alert for the south, southeast and southwest for ‘very strong and potentially damaging winds’ is also in effect on Thursday.
The wind may tear roofs off, down power lines and even hurl life-threatening debris.
Every September, the Met Office releases a list of 21 storm names beginning with a different letter, from A straight through to W.
As storms come and go from early September to late August the following year, if one is disruptive enough, weather officials name it to help get public messages and warnings out easier.
As the third storm since September – following Agnes and Babet – next week’s has to start with the letter C so is named Ciarán.
The name was submitted by a member of the public but is also the name of Ciarán Fearon, who works for the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland.
‘He uses Met Office forecasts on a regular basis and ensures relevant information is shared on river levels, coastal flooding and other impacts of severe weather,’ the Met Office says.
Only last week did Babet tear through Britain, with Scotland being especially hard-hit by the deluge. Crops were ripped from farmland, streets submerged and livelihoods swept away by floodwaters.
In a rarely seen move, the Met Office issued a red weather warning for Babet, stressing the conditions posed a danger to life.
While chalking up extreme weather events to climate change can be tricky to do, scientists have long warned that as the planet warms, storms and flooding may become more frequent and powerful.
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