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Storm Darragh is set to bring damaging gusts to Ireland tonight with multiple red, orange and yellow weather warnings being issued by Met Éireann.
Three status red wind warnings have been issued on top of two orange-level alerts for the whole country with impacts set to include fallen trees, damage to power lines, dangerous travelling conditions, damage to temporary structures and wave overtopping.
Status red wind warnings have been issued for Clare, Galway, Mayo, Donegal, Leitrim and Sligo. The warnings for Clare and Galway will be in place from 9pm tonight until 2am, while the warning for Mayo will be in place from 9pm until 3am. The alert Donegal, Leitrim and Sligo will be in place from 11pm until 3am on Saturday.
A fourth status red wind warning has also been issued for Wicklow, running from 1am on Saturday until 6am.
A status orange wind warning for Munster and Connacht will come into place at 8pm on Friday and remain until 10am on Saturday. An orange wind warning for all of Leinster, Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan has also been issued and will remain in place from 10pm tonight until 10am on Saturday.
The forecaster has also issued a nationwide status yellow wind warning from 3pm on Friday until 3pm on Saturday. A second status yellow rain warning for Clare, Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan, Longford, Louth, Meath, Westmeath and all of Connacht will be in place from 10am today for a period of 24 hours.
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”.
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.
