Red weather warnings in effect as Storm Darragh brings 140km/h winds
Picture: Wind Been Sligo And Lawless Warnings Red Issued Clare, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, For Brian Donegal, Have Wicklow Status
Multiple red weather warnings are now in effect as Storm Darragh makes land in Ireland.
Status red wind warnings have been issued for Clare, Galway, Mayo, Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo and Wicklow.
The warnings in Clare, Galway and Mayo are now in effect - with Donegal, Leitrim and Sligo's alert kicking in at 11pm.
Wicklow's warning starts at 1am.
All three are set to expire by 6am on Saturday.
Status orange wind warnings are in place for Munster and Connacht from 8pm Friday to 10am Saturday, and for Leinster, Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan from 10pm Friday to 10am Saturday.
A nationwide status yellow wind warning will run from 3pm Friday to 3pm Saturday. A second yellow rain warning is in place for Clare, Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan, Longford, Louth, Meath, Westmeath, and all of Connacht from 10am Friday for 24 hours.
Fastnet Lighthouse has already seen gusts of 140km/h or 79 knots.
Meanwhile, Cork County Council were informed of a number of roads being blocked on Friday evening due to fallen trees.
There was a fallen tree on the N25 between Carrigtwohill and Midleton
There are reports of a tree down on the L7018 Ballymore, Cobh, but crews are on route to assess.
There is reports of a tree down on L1328-0 Lisballyhay to Doneraile road.
A downed tree has been cleared from the N71 near Glengarriff.
The forecaster has also warned of river flooding with heavy rain and showers due on Friday and Saturday.
"The ground is saturated or waterlogged countrywide, so any additional rainfall will flow overland, resulting in surface water flooding, and flow straight into the river network.
"Some river levels in the West, Midlands and South-West are still above average, and the additional forecast rain could result in localised river flooding."
Met Éireann deputy head of forecasting Liz Coleman said Storm Darragh is going to bring "quite impactful winds across the country through Friday and into Saturday as the centre of the storm tracks across the northwest of the country".
"While it will be windy everywhere, it’s the gusts which can be the most damaging. The intense winds are expected to occur overnight but will continue for a time into Saturday morning, especially in those counties under orange wind warnings," she said.
"We ask people to be prepared and to secure any loose objects ahead of the storm and to plan their journeys safely if they need to be out on Saturday morning as there could be trees or power lines down.
"There will also be heavy rain associated with Storm Darragh which may lead to some localised flooding, along with hazardous travelling conditions."
Met Éireann has said that as Storm Darragh clears eastwards towards the UK and continental Europe, Ireland "will lie in a cold and strong north to northwest airflow".
"This will feed in showers from the north, of rain, sleet and hail, with some snow showers likely over higher ground. The showers will be most widespread across the north and west but will make their way across the country in fresh to strong and gusty northwest winds."
Taoiseach Simon Harris has urged the public on the west coast to take extraordinary caution with the red warnings in place.
“It’s very rare to have a status red weather warning and I’d really like to encourage everybody in the six counties in the west affected by the red weather warning to take it extraordinarily seriously,” Mr Harris said.
“Red weather warning does mean do not travel during that period of time and even though it is a Friday night, coming up to the Christmas season, I’d really encourage people to heed that advice.”
Wonderlights, held in Fota House and Gardens, Cork has said it will not be open on Friday night due to adverse weather conditions.
Billed as Ireland's "largest and most mesmerising immersive light show experience”, organisers emailed customers saying that the event was cancelled “due to the weather and for everyone’s safety”.
Gas Networks Ireland say it would "like to reassure its 720,000 customers that it does not anticipate any disruption to gas supplies during Storm Darragh."
Storm Darragh was first named by the UK Met Office, and it has issued an orange warning for Northern Ireland from 3am on Saturday until 9pm.
Since 2015, Met Éireann and the UK Met Office have been working together on the storm naming programme and were joined by the Netherlands’ KNMI in 2019. The storm that will impact Ireland this weekend has been named Darragh as the previous name, Conall, was named last month.
Storm Conall was named by the Dutch meteorological service on November 26, but it was not forecasted to affect Ireland. It did affect the UK and the Netherlands.
Storms are given names to increase public preparedness for extreme weather. They are only named when they could cause 'medium or high' impacts in any of the three partner countries.
When a storm is forecast, the national weather service that expects the biggest impact from the severe weather to hit its region or is likely to be first affected by it, names the storm.
Storm-naming happens in conjunction with orange/red weather warnings, which could be for wind, rain or snow or a combination of these conditions.
Check out the Irish Examiner's WEATHER CENTRE for regularly updated short and long range forecasts wherever you are.