Northern Ireland

Amber rain warning issued for parts of Northern Ireland as Storm Ciarán closes in

Heavy rain is forecast for Northern Ireland (Peter Byrne/PA)
Heavy rain is forecast for Northern Ireland (Peter Byrne/PA)
By Liam Grimley

An amber rain warning has been issued by the Met Office for parts of the North for tonight going into tomorrow morning as Storm Ciarán approaches.

Areas of Armagh, Down and Antrim, including Belfast, will experience heavy rainfall from 9pm tonight, Monday, 30 October, until 9am tomorrow morning, Tuesday, 31 October.

Tomorrow, most areas will experience 25-50mm of rainfall, with 75-100mm falling on high ground.

The Met Office warns that fast flowing or deep floodwater is possible, causing a danger to life, possible extensive flooding of homes and businesses, damage to buildings and structures or building collapse, potential road closures and public transport disruptions.

Read more:

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Storm Ciarán was named by Met Éireann and has predicted heavy showers or longer spells of rain over Ireland with flooding likely in places, as soil is saturated and river levels are high. 

The storm may also interfere with the delivery of essential services such as gas, electricity, water or mobile phone services and isolate some communities for "up to several days".

As well as this latest warning, yellow rain warnings are also in place for counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry from Monday to Wednesday.

Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill said: "Due to the eastern wind coming in we are going to see some heavy showers come in particularly in the eastern parts of Northern Ireland on Monday.

"Going through the night we could see some places getting over 100mm of rain on high ground, so this could cause some disruption, particularly as we go through to the morning rush hour."

This storm is the third to hit Northern Ireland in this storm season, after storms Agnes and Babet.

Agnes, which swept across Northern Ireland in the last week of September, brought strong winds and heavy rain, with gusts of over 58mph, caused disruption to Irish Sea ferry services and grounded some flights out of Belfast City Airport.

Babet reached our shores on October 18 and brought yellow rain warnings over parts of Antrim and Down for two days.

The current storm season runs from September 2023 to August 2024 with storms being named in alphabetical order from A to Z.