Storm Franklin: Met Office warns NI will be worst hit as new storm strikes

The Met Office has issued an amber warning for wind which could cause “travel delays, road and rail closures, power cuts and the potential risk to life and property” in Northern Ireland.

Milder yellow warnings for wind also cover Wales and most of England from midday until 3pm, and the North West and Northern Ireland from midday until midnight.

Identical wind warnings have been issued for Monday.

Environment agencies have also issued hundreds of alerts for flooding across the UK.

This comes just two days after Storm Eunice caused what providers believe was a record national outage over a 24-hour period on Friday, with around 1.4 million homes affected.

Some 83,000 people were still without power on Sunday morning, according to the Energy Networks Association.

The Environment Agency has issued 44 flood warnings where “flooding is likely” for locations mainly in the north and west of England, and 117 alerts where “flooding is possible” for the north-western half of the UK, London and the south coast.

Some 18 flood warnings and seven alerts have also been issued across the Scottish Borders, Ayrshire, Orkney and the Western Isles by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

Natural Resources Wales has issued six flood warnings for areas just east of Shrewsbury, and 25 alerts covering much of the country.

🎥 UPDATE: The Met Office has named #StormFranklin

The storm is forecast to bring strong winds and heavy rain to the UK and Ireland today and tomorrow.

The strongest winds will be here in Northern Ireland where an Amber weather warning has been issued pic.twitter.com/xE5rrpmFx3

— Q Radio News (@qnewsdesk) February 20, 2022