Met Éireann issues wind warning for west coast

A yellow wind warning has been issued for Monday as communities in western counties brace themselves for further rainfall over the coming days.

The weather alert applies to counties Donegal, Galway, Mayo, Clare, Cork and Kerry with southeast winds of 45-60km/h and gusts of 80-95km/h expected in the early hours of Monday morning. The warning will remain valid until 1pm.

Monday will also see rain spreading eastwards during the day while the night will be cold enough for slight to sharp ground frost to form, Met Éireann said.

Tuesday will start dry apart from showers in the south and west. Southerly winds will increase strong to gale force in all areas by the afternoon and rain will spread from the west by nightfall.

Rain will continue in most places overnight Tuesday becoming particularly heavy in western counties before Wednesday morning.

This will be followed by widespread and locally heavy rain up to late Wednesday afternoon but a clearance to isolated showers is forecast to spread from the west early in the night. The showers will mostly affect western coasts for the rest of Wednesday night, with clear spells likely to develop elsewhere.

Water levels on Lough Derg are continuing to rise following heavy rainfall in the Shannon catchment area over the past few days.

Parteen Weir

The ESB increased the volume of water downstream from Parteen Weir to 405 cumecs (cubic metres per second) on Sunday which could result in flooding in Springfield, Montpelier, Castleconnell, Mountshannon (Annacotty) and the University of Limerick.

Clare County Council said water levels along the lower river Shannon are likely to increase further in the coming days due to the increase in discharged levels at Parteen Weir. “Further flooding is inevitable,” the council said.

Limerick City and County Council also warned of a heightened risk of flooding. Standard operating and response procedures are in place in Limerick should localised flooding occur, according to Vincent Murray, senior engineer with Limerick City and County Council.

“The Council remains on alert to ensure that the necessary responses can be immediately activated in the event of flooding during the coming days as approximately two inches of rainfall is forecast between Monday and Wednesday,” he said. “In the meantime, we are advising members of the public to exercise caution in the vicinity of waterways during the Christmas period due to forecasts of heavy rain and higher than average tides.”

Flooding on roads

AA Roadwatch has warned people not to attempt to drive through large puddles of water as you can’t tell how deep the water is.

The Western Corridor Irish rail train line remains flooded between Ennis and Limerick with bus transfers in operation and a restricted service in and out of Sixmilebridge.

There will be Saturday services on all Dart and Connolly commuter routes on Monday, with some changes to Intercity services. Customers are advised to check irishrail.ie before making their way to the station.

Heavy rain on Christmas Day brought flooding to roads in many parts of the country.

Severe flood warning in Britain

In Britain, severe flood warnings are in place prompting a vast operation that saw the army on the streets of Cumbria.

Five severe flood warnings have been issued for the North West as forecasters said up to 120mm of rain could fall in some areas already saturated by wave after wave of winter squalls.

A red weather warning, the most serious alert, for heavy rain and flooding in Lancashire was issued by the UK Met Office on St Stephen’s Day.

Some 115 flood alerts and 100 warnings were also issued by the UK's Environment Agency mainly for the north west, north east and Wales. The UK government's emergency Cobra committee met on Christmas Day.