Met Office weather warnings have laid out a grim forecast for the UK over the next few days, with gale-force winds set to tear over hundreds of miles until Friday
Storm Eowyn will buffet Brits with extreme 100kph winds and could cause extensive damage across every single UK home nation as it arrives this week, maps show.
The Met Office named the latest storm system on Tuesday after issuing a slew of weather warnings for the country, with excessive snow, wind and rain expected to descend over hundreds of miles through the next few days. The primarily yellow alerts state people’s travel plans will be the primary casualty of the bluster and precipitation, with the worst of the weather hitting on Friday.
A rare amber warning issued for January 24 states “very strong winds” will cause a “danger to life” for hundreds of thousands of Britons living in a large strip of northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Maps have turned black and grey as they show just how dangerous and dramatic those winds could get over the next few days.
New maps from WXCharts show Eowyn storming towards the UK via Ireland’s southwest coast on Friday, with intense winds organising themselves in the area from around 12am. Maps from the service – which takes data from MetDesk – show that, just a few hours later, it will explode and start moving east, hitting every single home nation.
At their uninterrupted maximum around 6am, the winds could reach speeds of 178kph (110mph) and beyond, with Eowyn able to swirl unimpeded in the open water off the Irish coast. While the system will weaken as it moves inland by around 6pm, 12 hours later, it is expected to remain powerful and dangerous.
WXCharts maps show 154kph (94mph) highs over the Irish Sea, with slightly lower 118kph (73mph) gusts over Wales and the Midlands to the north of Manchester and parts of northern England, with the strongest gusts over high ground in Yorkshire. The rest of the broad area between Manchester and the Scottish west coast at Oban, and Northern Ireland.
The amber weather warning covering the area warns gale-force winds will blast Brits from 6am before gradually weakening towards the end of the day at around 9pm. The warning states: “Storm Éowyn will move across the northwest of the UK on Friday, clearing to the northeast on Friday night.
“This will bring a spell of very strong west to southwesterly winds, with peak gusts of 60 to 70 mph fairly widely inland, 70 to 80 mph in some areas, and 80 to 90 mph along more exposed coasts and hills (perhaps even higher in a few locations). It should be noted that there may be a slight reduction in wind strength for a time as the centre of Storm Éowyn passes overhead, this most likely in parts of Northern Ireland and western Scotland, before winds rapidly increase again.
“Winds will gradually ease later on Friday.”