A rare red weather warning stating there’s a risk to life has been issued to parts of Scotland as Storm Babet is expected to batter the United Kingdom on Thursday.
The United Kingdom is bracing for heavy wind and rain from the storm, which is presently hitting Ireland after sweeping in from the Atlantic.
Here, the Met Office has released a deep dive video to explain what’s occurring.
The Met Office has revealed the first bands of rain associated with Storm Babet is set to move north across the United Kingdom this afternoon. The first warning starts at 2 p.m.
Teignmouth in Devon was being blasted by powerful waves and gale-force winds this morning as Storm Babet blew into the south coast of England.
National Rail has warned extreme weather is likely to affect Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Southern and Thameslink services until the end of Friday.
It said Storm Babet is expected to make contact with a considerable part of the Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Southern and Thameslink network.
It warned that routes in more exposed coastal locations are most likely to be affected, and flooding on the railways could lead to disruption.
First Minister Humza Yousaf has warned against all essential travel in parts of Scotland impacted by a red weather warning from Storm Babet.
The Met Office said that there’s a risk to life from flooding in Aberdeenshire and Angus.
He posted on Twitter that people should be aware of the challenging weather that we are due to experience across Scotland, most severe from Thursday 18:00-Friday 12:00.
Weather warnings across Angus and the North East have been upgraded to Red.
Travel should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
David Morgan, flood duty manager for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), urged people in the impacted locations to check for flood updates in the coming days.
He said that Storm Babet will bring heavy rain and high winds across Scotland from Wednesday evening, starting in the southwest before moving across to the northeast through Thursday and into the weekend.
He said that impacts from surface water and rivers were likely, and with catchments saturated from recent heavy rain and flooding, they were urging people to be prepared for potential flooding.
He added that there was also concern that surface water flooding might be exacerbated by debris blocking drainage, culverts et cetera as a result of the high winds.
Back in the day when I was a child, this time of the year it was always raining and thunderstorms, and the weatherman would stick his little cloud and lightning signs on his board and say ‘You’d better take your brollies’. There was none of this over-the-top nonsense there is today.
Don’t walk your dogs in the woods, you might get hit by a falling leaf, then you’ll be seriously traumatised. What a stupid name for a storm, why don’t they just call it a storm?
I can remember much worse weather when I was a child. Unbelievable thunderstorms, snow on the ground that lasted weeks, frozen lakes that you could skate on, and fog so dense you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you, but guess what, we survived.
Now people are all braced, they’re all panicking. Could we have photographs of the braced and panicking, please? People will be enraged and in disarray and outraged that the country is experiencing, what for it, the weather – tune in for tomorrow’s daily hysteria.
Honestly, does anyone actually, bar the emotionally incontinent, take any notice of these warnings anymore? Perhaps the government should allocate adult nappies to anyone who likes these dim weekly colour-coded weather warnings.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 