This is a Met Office UK Weather forecast looking at Storm Goretti on 08/01/2026.
A red warning has been issued because of the risk of dangerous and disruptive winds from Storm Goretti. There's also likely to be disruption from rain and snow. Aidan McGivern has the latest details.
00:00It's Thursday the 8th of January 2026. Here at the Met Office we have just issued a red wind warning for much of Cornwall, Isles of Scilly and in this area we're expecting between 4pm today and 11pm this evening wind gusts to reach 80 to 100 mile per hour.
00:20Those kinds of wind speeds are extreme even for this windy part of the country. We haven't seen a wind forecast like this for a long long time and these will be damaging disruptive winds.
00:35We're talking about the potential for power cuts, interruptions to mobile services, damage to buildings and dangerous conditions around coasts with large waves as well as flying debris.
00:46So the advice is stay indoors, do not attempt to travel in this region where there is a red warning in force and be prepared for the potential of power cuts and disruption to all sorts of travel, not just during the warning period but of course continuing afterwards.
01:04The red warning is valid from 4pm and 11pm across much of Cornwall but there's this yellow warning as well for wind gusts along coastal counties of England into the southwest as well as southwestern parts of Wales and it's in this area where we're expecting wind gusts of 50 to 60 miles an hour and in some exposed spots 70 miles an hour.
01:27What's going on? What's going on? Well this is Storm Goretti. It's also going to bring disruption to northern France. That's why the French named it but it will bring further disruption into central parts of the UK from rain and snow.
01:43There's a lot going on with this storm and as we speak it's an intensifying area of low pressure. It is deepening as it is currently approaching the UK.
01:53Here it is at midday and if I play this forward you can see how it interacts with the jet stream. The jet stream helping to spin it up, add more isobars into the centre of the low and by the time the low pressure centre arrives into the southwest of England we've got a lot of isobars particularly on the western flank of that low and that's where the strongest winds are expected.
02:17Hence the yellow and red wind warnings. Now not only do we have strong winds but we've got the risk of heavy snowfall in places and that's because this storm whilst it contains Atlantic wind and rain and a lot of mild air represented by these colours it bumps into the Arctic air in place across the UK.
02:38So it's a multi-hazard event we're talking about. Different parts of the UK will be affected by different things. The wind, the greatest concern because of the red warning for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
02:52Channel Islands are also likely to be very severely affected by the winds from Storm Goretti as well as northern parts of France.
02:59But elsewhere across the country the wind's not so much of a concern it's more about the rain and the snow so I'm going to be going to a bit more further detail in the next few minutes on all those aspects of the storm.
03:10But let's take a look at first at the winds and what you can see first of all from the winds is that when I play this forward during the rest of Thursday
03:21and this is a wind gust graphic. I'll rewind a touch there. There's a very narrow swathe of the strongest wind gusts so this is midday as Goretti is deepening and you can see how the wind gusts strengthen during the next few hours so that by 4pm
03:45rewinding a little bit there. By 3pm there the very strongest winds are starting to approach the Isles of Scilly.
03:53Here's the key. Anything coloured in is above 50 mile per hour wind gusts and so through the Bristol Channel there into south and south west Wales
04:02the coasts of Cornwall into Devon as well starting to see 50 mile per hour plus gusts during the next few hours.
04:09But very quickly that swathe, that very narrow swathe of the most intense winds are likely to arrive 5pm into the Isles of Scilly into western parts of Cornwall.
04:23Now it's possible that the low pressure centre will move through parts of Cornwall and Devon and if that happens winds will fall light briefly.
04:33But then as the low pressure centre moves through suddenly the winds will whip up in the space of half hour, an hour or so from 30 mile per hour wind gusts to 80 to 100.
04:46And you can see there as it moves through between 4pm, 8pm, 9pm, that swathe of 80 to 100 mile per hour wind gusts expected to go through Isles of Scilly, western parts of Cornwall.
05:06And it's in this area where there is that danger of life, red warning, the risk of some very serious impacts.
05:14These kinds of winds haven't been predicted for western parts of Cornwall for a long, long time.
05:20It's not something we've seen for a long time here at the Met Office.
05:22Then that swathe of very strong winds pushes into northern parts of France and the Channel Islands.
05:30So expect disruption across northern France and the Channel Islands as well during the evening before eventually the winds start to come down across the southwest as well as southwest Wales.
05:44So the winds, one of the most dangerous things is that rapid escalation between not very windy at all to very intense winds.
05:54So don't be fooled if the winds fall light for a time during the afternoon or early evening because that very narrow, intense wave of winds is on the way.
06:04That moves through and it will also contain a lot of rainfall.
06:10It's already raining heavily across the southwest and other parts of southern UK.
06:15That rain could well hamper issues as well in the south and southwest.
06:19Now the mild air that is associated with Storm Goretti, that is increasingly confined to the south of the UK.
06:27And further north, whilst it may start off as rain, it will eventually turn to snow as the arctic air to the north of the UK mixes in with this band of rain.
06:39This is 3pm.
06:40You can see the rain moving north through the Midlands into much of Wales, approaching the Peak District.
06:48And at this stage we're starting to see the rain turn to snow across higher parts of Wales.
06:53The Peak District, for example, some whites coming through across the West Midlands.
06:57Of course, the sun going down, the air cooling off, and the heavier the rain is and the longer it lasts, the more the atmosphere cools down enough that much of this precipitation will end up as snow.
07:08But it is very finely balanced.
07:11It's going to be one of those situations where there is highly variable snow cover across the southern half of the UK.
07:19Now we've seen a lot of snow across parts of Scotland and indeed Northern Ireland this week so far.
07:26But this storm, Storm Goretti, expected to impact England and Wales rather than Scotland and Northern Ireland.
07:33And that's why the focus for this video is on England and Wales further north.
07:37We'll continue to see some sleet and snow showers here and there, but mostly it is a dry end to the day for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
07:45All the action happening further south.
07:49Now I'm going to play this a bit further forward into the evening and you can see that area of white becoming more extensive across much of Wales.
07:55The Midlands, I think Cardiff, mostly rain further north into the valleys.
08:00Upland parts of Wales, a lot of snow starting to develop during the evening and overnight.
08:06Likewise for the Midlands.
08:08Could be a very wintry scene for Birmingham eventually, even if it starts off as snow.
08:12The snow also affecting the Peak District, but perhaps staying mostly patchy, sleet and snow or even rain for the likes of Merseyside, Liverpool, Manchester.
08:23Those areas not within the yellow and amber snow warnings.
08:27Further south, we've got some heavy showers as the winds start to come down overnight and some very wet weather continuing.
08:34But as the worst of the winds die down, well, the impacts start to emerge from the snowfall, much of Wales and the Midlands.
08:44And we can see how much snow we're expecting on this graphic.
08:49This will show the 12 hour snow totals up to tomorrow morning.
08:53This is the amount of snow coming out of the sky.
08:57And although details may change slightly for specific parts of this area, it gives a broad idea of a little bit of snow cover there for southwestern parts of the country.
09:07As storm Goretti pulls away, as cold red digs down, most likely parts of Dartmoor and Exmoor, perhaps the black downhills.
09:17Patchy small amounts of snow elsewhere through central southern England into the east Midlands.
09:23But it's really through much of Wales, particularly mid and north Wales, into the west Midlands, up towards the Peak District.
09:31This area where some very large snow amounts is expected to fall, 5 to 15 centimetres widely, up to 30 centimetres.
09:41That's what these reds are showing, up to 30 centimetres over higher parts of mid and north Wales into northern parts of the Midlands, the Peak District.
09:49So, Derbyshire could be some significant disruption by the morning, for example, because of the snow cover.
09:55Meanwhile, very little snow there for lower lying parts of northwest England, as well as towards the south and southeast.
10:04So, we do have snow warnings as well.
10:07I've mentioned the wind warnings.
10:10Here's a summary of the snow warnings.
10:13And we continue to have snow and ice warning across the north and northeast of the UK.
10:21Mostly, it's slippery surfaces that is the main concern here because of the antecedent conditions.
10:29But further south, this yellow warning and the amber warning, representing where further snow is expected to accumulate during the next 24 hours.
10:39Thursday evening, much of the rain that arrives likely to turn to snow in these warning areas.
10:47And it's within this amber warning area where there's the risk, highest risk of disruption from snow.
10:5315 centimetres in places, perhaps as much as 30 over higher parts of mid and north Wales through the Midlands into the Peak District.
11:01That's why there's an amber warning.
11:03As I say, very patchy, very variable cover in snow.
11:08Even if you've got a warning in your location, it doesn't mean you're guaranteed snow.
11:13It's just an indication of where the greatest risk of impact from snow is to be had.
11:20But, yeah, it's central parts of the UK whilst further south.
11:24As I said at the start of the forecast, it's all about the wind.
11:30A broad yellow warning for the rest of Thursday because of the risk of 50 to 60 mile per hour winds and in some exposed spots, 70 mile per hour winds along coastal parts of southern England, the southwest and southwest Wales.
11:43But then this red warning that has just been issued by the Met Office as we've been monitoring how much Storm Goretti is deepening out in the Atlantic on its approach to the UK.
11:56This red warning valid from 4pm to 11pm is where we're worried about the risk of 80 to 100 mile per hour wind gusts, dangerous conditions, danger to life warning and the risk of flying debris, power cuts, damage to buildings.
12:16So, best advice if you're in the red warning area, avoid travel, hunker down, stay indoors.
12:24The peak winds will last a few hours and it will blow through by tomorrow morning.
12:29It is not worth heading outside, taking a look at conditions.
12:33It's simply not worth it.
12:34These are extreme winds we're expecting and we've not seen these kinds of winds in the west of Cornwall for some time.
12:41So, please do stay safe, stay up to date with the latest warnings and messaging from the Met Office and from your local authorities.
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