Weather live: Storm Ciarán heads to UK; amber risk to life weather warning in place

The Met Office has named the third storm of the season as it’s set to bring 90mph winds to the UK from Thursday.

The forecaster said Storm Ciarán is set to bring “strong winds and heavy rain” as it sweeps across the UK next week.

It comes after areas across Scotland and north-east England were battered with the worst of Storm Babet, which caused serious damage and several deaths when it hit last week.

Met office Deputy Chief Meteorologist, Chris Almond, said: “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.”

The Environment agency currently has a staggering 71 flood warnings in place across England and a further 172 flood alerts. Meanwhile in Scotland, 18 flood warnings and 11 flood alerts are currently in place.

The Met Office has issued a new amber weather warning for rain today.

The warning will be in place in Northern Ireland from 9pm tonight until 9am on Tuesday and comes with a “danger to life” warning.

They also say communities in the region could be “completely cut off” for “several days” by floodwater.

Although Storm Ciarán is not set to arrive in the UK until Wednesday night, the UK is already under a staggering number of flood warnings and alerts.

In England, 69 flood warnings and 173 flood alerts are currently in place spanning almost the entirety of the country.

In Scotland, five flood warnings and five flood alerts are in place in central Scotland as well as in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, in Wales, one flood warning and 14 flood alerts have been issued in the south and southwest of the country.

Here’s the UK’s five day weather forecast, according to the Met Office:

Monday will be cloudy with patchy rain across eastern Scotland and northern England. Some sunshine elsewhere, but with heavy showers, some thundery, becoming more widespread from the south and west and across Northern Ireland during the afternoon.

Mostly dry and chilly across the north with isolated showers near coasts. Heavy showers continuing to affect southwest England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Elsewhere clear spells and patchy fog developing.

Dry with sunny spells across the north. Elsewhere variable amounts of cloud with rain or showers especially across the southwest and Northern Ireland. Persistent rain arriving from the southwest later.

Wednesday will see showers or longer spells of rain moving northeast, and generally becoming windy. Storm Ciarán arriving later Wednesday bringing a spell of heavy rain and gales forces winds.

The Met Office, Ireland’s Met Éirean and Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) work together to compile the list before the start of the season which runs from September to August.

This year, some of them have been chosen in honour of real-life weather experts – one of them being Ciarán Fearon.

Mr Fearon is a senior engineer in the Emergency Planning Unit for Irelands Department for Infrastructure.

He tells us more about himself below:

Storm Ciarán is set to arrive in Britain on Wednesday night, with it’s full effects to be seen by many Britons on Thursday.

Strong winds carried by the jet stream will cross the Atlantic this week, this area will develop into Storm Ciarán on it’s journey.

Four yellow weather warnings are in place on Monday for both wind and rain.

In Wales, a yellow weather warning for rain, which began on Sunday, remains in place until 9am on Monday.

In London and southeastern England, a yellow weather warning for rain began at 12am on Monday and will remain in place until 6pm.

The Met Office warns that there is a chance of power cuts and flooding in the region.

Meanwhile, there are two yellow weather warnings in place for rain in Northern Ireland. The first began at 12am on Monday and will remain in place until noon then later in the day another yellow weather warning will come into place for rain at 4pm.

The Met Office says flooding of a few homes and businesses in the region is “likely”

A video from a riverside London pub shows the water level rising above the windows following a weekend of wet weather.

The pub, which is thought to be The Bull’s Head in Chiswick, posted the video to X on Sunday to show the “high tide”.

Elsewhere, a shopping centre had to be evacuated in Hastings following flooding and pictures showed flooding in a holiday park in Bognor Regis.

As Briton’s are expecting a wet and windy week ahead, here’s the Monday’s forecast from the Met Office.

Monday will be cloudy with patchy rain across eastern Scotland and northern England.

Some sunshine elsewhere, but with heavy showers, some thundery, becoming more widespread from the south and west and across Northern Ireland during the afternoon.

ScotRail services will be returning to normal on Monday following disruption during a weekend of heavy rain with weather warnings.

Some services were suspended and speed restrictions were in place while the Met Office yellow alert was in force in much of eastern and north-east Scotland. The warning expired on Sunday and ScotRail said that speed restrictions put in place across the region as a safety precaution have now been removed across most of the network.

ScotRail said that work is underway to ensure that services run as normal on Monday, though it warned passengers that there may be some remaining alternations first thing in the morning as some trains have been left out of place.

There are currently no weather warnings in place for Scotland later this week when Storm Ciarán hits, but areas in southern England have been warned by the Met Office to expect delays and cancellations to transport services.

David Simpson, ScotRail service delivery director, said: “The vast majority of services will operate as normal on Monday, and we look forward to welcoming passengers to take advantage of our off-peak all day trial.

“Customers are advised to check before travelling by visiting the ScotRail website, app, or social media channels.”

Speed restrictions will remain in place until early on Monday on the Kyle line (Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh).

LNER said there will be no services running from Edinburgh to Aberdeen, or from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, until Monday due to the weather.