A rare red weather warning predicting “extremely strong wind” that could lead to a “danger to life” has been issued for part of the United Kingdom as Storm Isha hits.
Running from 1am on Monday, January 22, to 5am, the red weather warning for wind covers Aberdeenshire, Moray, and the Scottish Highlands. Meanwhile two amber weather warnings and three yellow cover the rest of the United Kingdom.
The Met Office forecasts winds of up to 100mph will batter Scotland. It could lead to a danger to life from debris, large waves, power cuts, and damage to buildings.
A Met Office spokesman said: “A short spell of extremely strong westerly winds will affect a small area of northern Scotland early on Monday. Gusts of 90 to 100 mph are likely for a brief time, bringing a risk of damage, disruption and a danger to life. Winds will steadily moderate through Monday morning but will remain strong.”
It comes as Storm Isha looks set to cause chaos during the Monday morning rush hour. Agencies across Cumbria declared themselves on standby for a major incident, with Sellafield nuclear site closing as a precaution on Sunday.
Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said: “We’re expecting widespread gales to affect the UK, amber warnings are in place for large parts of the country.
“There’s the potential for danger-to-life and damaging winds potentially leading to some power cuts in places, some large waves around coastal regions could bring some debris onto roads and trees could come down.”
He added: “We have a wind warning in place across the whole of the UK, it’s pretty unusual for the whole of the country to be under a blanket wind warning.”
Network Rail imposed 50mph speed restrictions across most routes to keep passengers and trains safe from falling trees and debris blown onto tracks, with disruption likely to continue into Monday morning.
Scotland’s railway operator cancelled all of its rush-hour trains and services may not begin running until “later on Monday”.
East Midlands Railway has said delays and alterations to its services were “likely”, while no LNER trains will run north of Newcastle until midday.
Storm Isha is the ninth named storm to hit the UK since the season began in September. Each storm is named when it poses a risk to people and they are given names beginning with consecutive letters of the alphabet.
The record number of named storms in one year is when the Met Office began the practice in 2015/16, with Storm Katie being the 11th and final storm of the season. If there are three more named storms between next week and August, this year will mark a new record.
Cold Arctic air pushing south into North America is making the jet stream more active, the Met Office said, and because it flows from west to east, it is bringing stormier weather to the UK.
