Storm Ciara – This weekend with damaging winds possible
Storm Ciara will arrive this weekend bringing potentially damaging winds and dangerous waves. Alex Deakin looks at the cause of this system and the possible impacts across the country.
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00:00This morning here at the Met Office we've named Storm Kira arriving at the
00:04weekend a deep area of low pressure bringing potentially damaging gusts of
00:08wind maybe as high as 80 miles an hour and we're also concerned about some very
00:12large and dangerous waves that could accompany this storm. Now the storm
00:17system arriving at the weekend couldn't be in greater contrast to what we've got
00:20at the moment across the UK a big area of high pressure and light winds meaning
00:25fog and frost but things are changing out in the Atlantic and it's more
00:29importantly even further away across North America exceptionally cold air is
00:34driving south from northern Canada and hitting relatively warm air down across
00:39the southeast of the US and it's that contrast in temperatures which is
00:43driving the jet stream that fast-moving ribbon of air high up in the atmosphere
00:48is being invigorated by that temperature contrast across the US and this
00:53energized jet stream then powers across the Atlantic during Friday and into
00:58Saturday taking this area of low pressure with it. Now it's really as we
01:02go into Friday and Saturday that's the interaction with that low pressure
01:06system and the jet stream could really spin it up and really give this low
01:10pressure system a lot of extra vigor and turn it into potentially quite a nasty
01:15storm it's this low which is Storm Kira. As I said arriving at the weekend
01:20bringing quite widely gusts of 50 to 60 miles an hour now there's a lot to
01:24happen between now and then this is four or five days away and the exact
01:28interaction with that powerful jet will play a crucial role and that's why
01:32there's some uncertainty and that uncertainty is reflected in the size of
01:35our weather warning currently covering the whole of the UK because subtle shift
01:40in that low or the jet stream will make all the difference to where exactly we
01:44see the strongest winds but we are looking as I said at winds potentially
01:48gusting in some spots as high as 80 miles an hour that's likely to bring
01:52some structural damage and certainly some travel disruption closures to
01:55bridges and also ferry disruption there's also the likelihood of some
02:00power issues and as I said very large waves meaning the risk of coastal
02:06flooding there is that uncertainty and over the next few days we will be
02:09fine-tuning these weather warnings so make sure you stay weather aware and
02:14stay up to date with the latest from the Met Office