Warnings have been issued over major disruption to travel as Storm Claudia brings heavy rain and flooding to Britain.A yellow weather warning for rain came into force at 6am for a large part of England, including London, with the warning of treacherous road conditions with delays and cancellations expected on trains and buses.Alex Burkill takes us through the developments of Storm Claudia and the potential impacts due to the strong winds and very heavy rain forecast.
00:00Storm Claudia is coming. It's going to bring some very wet and windy weather, particularly to central and southern parts of England and Wales as we go through this Friday, 14th of November.
00:11Now, this features a little bit different to some of our other storms for a few reasons.
00:17One, well, the low, Claudia, was actually named by the Spanish MET service, AEMET, earlier on in the week.
00:24That's because it's bringing, it's already brought, and it will continue to do so, some heavy rain, some large hail, some strong winds to parts of the Canary Islands, Portugal and western Spain.
00:36However, the wet weather is going to feed its way towards the UK.
00:40Now, the other thing that makes this a little bit different to usual is it's the rain that we're most concerned about.
00:46Yes, it is going to be windy, particularly so for some places, northwest Wales, parts of northwest England as well.
00:52But it's the high rainfall totals that we're most concerned about.
00:56The other thing that makes this slightly different to usual, the wind direction that we're going to see our air coming from as we go through this coming Friday.
01:04It's coming from the east northeast, and so that's going to play a pivotal role in where we see the highest rainfall totals.
01:11But let's look at the details of what we're expecting when it comes to storm Claudia.
01:15And as we go through overnight Thursday into Friday, there is this occluded front that pushes into southern parts of England, and that's going to bring a bit of heavy rain for a time.
01:26But if I run this through and we then get another frontal system coming up as associated with Claudia, we have a triple point, an occluded front, a warm front pushing in, followed by a cold front.
01:38And it's this that's going to lead to some very high rainfall totals building up as we go through Friday.
01:45Now, the fronts are actually going to bash up against the high pressure to the north of the UK.
01:51So whilst they will bring very heavy rain, some strong winds across many parts of England and Wales, actually, they're not making their way across the whole of the country.
02:00So large parts of Scotland, even fringes of northern England and much of Northern Ireland, staying generally dry.
02:06Chilly here, yes, a few showers, and these could be falling asleep or snow over modest higher ground.
02:11But much drier, brighter, and much less unsettled than across the bulk of England and Wales, where it is going to be very wet and also windy too.
02:20Let's just run through and look at the details a little bit closer and you can see, yes, there's heavy rain or a band of rain arriving as we go through the end of Thursday.
02:30That pushes across southern parts and then behind it, that next frontal system moves in as we go overnight into Friday.
02:38And it's this that's really going to lead to those rainfall totals building up as we go through Friday itself, eventually easing and clearing away as we go overnight into Saturday.
02:48So how wet is it going to be?
02:49Well, let's look at some rainfall totals.
02:51And if I get my 24-hour rainfall totals up and as we run through and later Thursday, you can see with that initial band of rain, some relatively high amounts of rain building up, more than 10, maybe 20 millimeters in some places.
03:07But it's as that next feature comes in that we really start to see the impacts of storm cloudier.
03:13So some high rainfall totals, if I just go through the whole of Friday and overnight into Saturday, you can see some deep reds highlighting that there's potential for 100, maybe even up to 150 millimeters of rain in some places, particularly over the southern hills and mountains of parts of Wales.
03:33And you may remember I mentioned that the wind direction is a little bit different to usual.
03:37Often we see our winds coming in from the west, southwest, but in this instance, they're going to be coming in from the east, northeast.
03:43And that plays a pivotal role in where we're going to see the highest rain.
03:46It's going to be on those eastern-facing upslopes because of the direction of the wind.
03:52Now, relatively often, the western-facing higher ground towards particularly parts of Wales, obviously Scotland, Northern Ireland, other parts as well, but it's usually the western-facing hills that see the highest rainfall totals.
04:05So it's a little bit different to see it on the eastern side, and that means the chance of impacts is slightly greater.
04:12I mean, nonetheless, 100, 150 millimeters of rain, that's a substantial amount.
04:17As I mentioned as well, however, the gusts are also a thing.
04:21We need to watch out for those.
04:24So as we go through, let's just dart ahead, as we go through into Friday, it's across this part of northwest Wales and also parts of northwest England with the east-northeasterly flow.
04:34So it's in areas exposed to this, so the higher ground over parts of northwest England and then coastal and higher ground parts of northwest Wales as well, where we could see gusts of 60, 70 miles per hour.
04:46It is going to be blustery for many places where we have the wet weather as well.
04:50So it's very wet and it's windy, but it's particularly in these areas where we're concerned about the strong winds as well.
04:56Because of all this unsettled weather, unsurprisingly, we do have a number of warnings in force.
05:01So let's look at the warnings that we have out currently across the country.
05:05Worth bearing in mind that the warnings could get tweaked, could get updated as storm cloudy gets closer and we get a better idea of exactly how wet, how windy it's going to be.
05:14But currently, yes, there's a rain warning across southern parts of Scotland, northern parts of England because of some high rainfall totals here.
05:21But let's dart ahead to Friday because that's when the most unsettled weather's coming through.
05:25Let's get rid of the wind warnings for now. Let's just focus on these rain warnings.
05:30So a relatively large yellow rain warning across central southern England and Wales because within this area, there's a reasonable chance of seeing some impacts from the very wet weather that we're expecting.
05:43Across a slightly smaller area, you can see we have actually two amber warnings in force.
05:50There's one that stretches from central parts of Wales eastwards across the Midlands and then a smaller one across some parts of southern southeastern Wales.
05:59And now in this smaller one, that's where we have the chance of 100 to 150 millimeters of rain.
06:06And so it's no wonder that we're concerned about the impacts that we're going to see.
06:09And that's why that we have adopted the name that the Spanish Met Service gave this storm.
06:15And that's why we are now referring to it as Storm Claudia.
06:18I mentioned as well, though, that we do have some wind warnings.
06:20So let's get those up and let's have a look.
06:23So it's actually just one wind warning, but separated in two little regions.
06:27One for parts of northwest England, like I say, particularly over the higher ground.
06:30And then also one for parts of far western, northwestern Wales.
06:34And in these areas, we could see gusts of 60, 70 miles per hour, possibly even stronger.
06:39As I mentioned before, even elsewhere, it is going to be blustery with the wet weather.
06:44So it is going to be an unsettled date for sure.
06:46If you are planning to travel during the periods of most unsettled weather, you might need to alter your plans.
06:53Definitely worth staying up to date with the forecast.
06:56The amber warnings for rain are valid from midday Friday until midnight Friday currently.
07:02And the yellow warning is valid for a much larger time from 6 a.m. Friday until 6 a.m. on Saturday morning.
07:08So very unsettled weather.
07:10You may need to adjust your plans if you are likely to be affected by storm cloud year.
07:16Worth staying up to date with the forecast.
07:17Of course, we will be updating you throughout across our social media and our YouTube channel.
Be the first to comment