Two weather warnings are now in place ahead of Storm Hannah's arrival on Irish shores tomorrow.
Storm Hannah was officially named this morning with orange level winds expected to impact upon counties Clare, Limerick, Cork and Kerry from Friday afternoon (16:00) until late Friday night (05:00 Saturday). A yellow wind has also been issued for the rest of Munster, Connacht and southern Leinster, with this warning valid until 09:00 on Saturday.
Met Eireann's Siobhán Ryan has warned that the public should be prepared for the anticpated conditions, especially those living or travelling to the southwest with some disruption and power outages likely.
She said "There is an increased risk of impacts to life and property during times of severe weather with flying debris of particular concern during any wind event. People are advised to take in their BBQ or loose garden furniture, especially after the recent warm spell."
The forecaster added "with the trees now in full leaf, there is an increased threat of tree damage and possible felling too. Other impacts may include travel disruption with large and dangerous waves expected to crash into southwest coasts. Whilst Storm Hannah will primarily be a wind event, spells of heavy rain will be wrapped up around eye of the storm too."
Latest high resolution HIRLAM charts which keep #StormHannah a little further south than some other models but show damaging Gusts in Southwest moving East.
More updates later. pic.twitter.com/LEhRuvtkZg— Carlow Weather (@CarlowWeather) April 25, 2019
The last of the heavy rain is expected to clear the north and east during Saturday morning and winds will die down. However, brisk northwest winds will persist into Saturday afternoon with a mix of sunshine and scattered showers following.
