Main Points
- Storm Amy hit Ireland today, bringing heavy rain and strong to gale-force winds and the risk of power outages and significant travel disruption
- A man died in a weather-related incident in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, at around 4.15pm
- As of 5.15pm about 184,000 homes, farms and businesses were without power, predominantly in counties Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan and Donegal
- Galway City looks set to escape serious flooding during the storm, despite very high water levels on the River Corrib
- A status orange wind warning remains in place for Clare, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, and Sligo from 2pm today until 10pm
- A similar amber wind warning is in effect from 3pm until 8pm across Antrim, Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry
- A status yellow wind warning is in place for the State from noon until midnight, with a similar warning taking effect in northern Ireland from 2pm
Best Reads
- How Atlantic Hurricane Humberto becomes Ireland’s Storm Amy
- Met Éireann raised concerns that storm names might be shared with presidential candidates
Latest figures from ESB Networks indicate that, as of 8.45pm this evening, some 124,000 homes, farms and businesses were without power. These are predominantly in counties Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan and Donegal.
A man in his 40s died during a storm-related incident in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, on Friday afternoon.
Gardaí and emergency services attended the scene at a house around 4.15pm
His body was removed to the morgue at Letterkenny University Hospital, where a postmortem examination will be carried out.
Inquiries into the incident are ongoing, and a file will be prepared for the coroner.
An Garda Síochána understands that the man’s death is a weather-related incident, and have asked members of the public to observe the weather-related warnings in place.
A status orange wind warning remains in place for Co Donegal until 10pm for near gale force to gale force winds.
While the west coast is definitely bearing the brunt of Storm Amy, the east coast hasn’t escaped .
Galway City looks set to escape serious flooding during Storm Amy, despite very high water levels on the River Corrib following days of heavy rain, writes Andrew Hamilton.
There was localised street flooding in areas close to the Spanish Arch and Flood Street earlier today, but according to Councillor Níall McNeilis (Lab), who owns a flood prone business on Quay Street, local authority staff were out in force to clear blocked drains and relieve flooding.
The city escaped this afternoon’s high tide largely unscathed and it is hope that the worst of the storm may well have passed before the next high tide at 4am tomorrow morning.
While several businesses in Galway closed early for the day because of the storm, large numbers of American tourists are still roaming the streets of the city.
Many of them, according to Cllr McNeilis, have remained on in Ireland since last week’s NFL game in Croke Park.
At present there are dozens of reported power outages across County Galway, with some 130 people currently without power in Salthill.
There is significant disruption in MonaghanTown this evening and diversions are in place.
The red wind warning in Donegal has now expired but that does not mean things are much improved and high winds are still causing havoc across the county. An Orange warning has come into effect until 10pm. Leitrim, Sligo, Mayo, Galway, Clare and Roscommon are also under an Orange warning with the rest of the country under a Status Yellow wind warning until midnight Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry and Antrim are all under an Amber wind warning while Armagh and Down are under a Yellow warning.
A new provisional wind speed record has been set in Northern Ireland with a gust of 148 kilometres per hour recorded.
More delays likely for users of the Dart this evening.
Northern Ireland’s rail operator, Translink, has suspended all services between the border and Belfast with multiple reports of fallen trees on the rail network across Northern Ireland.
There is some bad news for Dublin commuters with Iarnód Éireann warning that DART services are facing delays of more than 15 minutes while there are also significant delays to Maynooth and as a result of trees on the line. There are also delays on the northern lines and some cancellations of services are expected across the network.
Weather conditions associated with Met Éireann’s Status Red, Orange and Yellow warnings have led to outages throughout today as Storm Amy causes substantial damage to the electricity network.
As of 5:15pm approximately 184,000 homes, farms and businesses are without power, predominantly in counties Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan and Donegal.
“With Met Éireann weather warnings still in place, and the dynamic nature of the event, further power outages can be expected throughout the evening,” an ESB Networks spokesman warned.
ESB Networks crews and partner contractors have been deployed to assess the damage, make the network safe and restore electricity supply in challenging conditions.
“Our crews will continue the restoration for as long as possible this evening but, with the difficult conditions, it is likely that the majority of customers will not have their power restored tonight,” the spokesman continued.
“We acknowledge the disruption to family and commercial life this causes and thank impacted customers for their patience as our crews work to safely restore power. We will update power estimated restoration times as soon as we have assessed the network, and these will be available to view on www.PowerCheck.ie.
“Storm Amy has been making its presence felt at Dublin Airport over the course of the day, leading to some cancellations, diversions and delays,” says DAA spokesman Graeme McQueen. “As of 5pm, a total of 58 flights have been cancelled, while 9 inbound flights have been diverted to other airports. In addition, some outbound and inbound flights are experiencing delays as a result of the weather issues here and at other airports.
“Wind speeds are due to decrease in the Dublin area this evening and into tomorrow (Saturday). However, with further disruption possible, passengers due to fly later today and early on Saturday should keep in touch with their airline for latest updates on the status of their flight.”
We are getting reports of a weather related incident in Letterkenny this afternoon in which a man was seriously injured. It occurred at around 4:15pm and Gardaí and emergency services are still at the scene . There is no further information available. Gardaí have urged people to pay heed to all the weather related warnings that are in place and take particular care in those parts of the country that are worst impacted.
A tale of two coasts - the west is being battered and there are people - two of them - swimming in the sea on the east.
Cork County Council has revealed that over 160 mm of rain has fallen in West Cork since Thursday morning as Storm Amy hit the south west, resulting in flooding and severe damage to road surfaces in many places throughout the local authority division
Barry Roche reports that Cork County Council said that crews have been out clearing up roads after flooding subsided while staff have also been busy clearing fallen trees including some which bloced roads in Lower Farran in Mid-Cork and on the Coppeen to Enniskeane Road in West Cork.
And the council also confirmed that Dursey Cable Car at the tip of the Beara Peninsula which enables people to travel across Dursey Sound to Dursey Island, will remain closed to the public on Friday and Saturday due to forecasted high winds.
We have more news from Donegal where Storm Amy is really making its presence felt.
There are reports of dozens of trees already down around many parts of the county including Letterkenny, Dunfanaghy, Donegal Town and Termon. And hundreds of homes are also without power, writes Stephen Maguire.
Up to 2,000 homes are without power in Buncrana, another 2,474 are without power in Milford and a further 2,640 have no power in Derrybeg.
Other areas hit include Dungloe, Glenties, Killybegs, Donegal Town, Laghey, Ballybofey, Convoy and Drumkeen.
Donegal County Council are pleading with people not to go outside while the storm is at Status Red.
The vast majority of businesses closed early.
The 3.05pm Sligo to Connolly service has been delayed by around 30 minutes as a result of a branch that was blocking the line near Carrick-on-Shannon, Iarnród Éireann has said.
We have some more pics of Storm Amy from the west.
Just by way of an update, the red warning is in effect in Donegal and will remain in place until 6pm. All of Connacht as well as Clare are under an Orange alert and will be so until 10pm while the whole country is under a yellow alert until midnight.
As you might expect, the worst impacted countries are being hammered by Amy, the first of the season’s storms to deserve a name. There have been gusts of 120km per hour recorded in Béal an Mhuirthead in Co Mayo and the Ceann Mhása observation station in Connemara.
As anyone who has ever spent any time in Galway will know, flooding in Salthill is all but inevitable when a big storm hits the west coast and today is not the exception that proves the rule.
Roads across the western fringes of Galway are impassible as a result of fallen trees and flooding the county council has warned.
The impacted roads are
- The N59 east and west of Kylemore Abbey
- The R341 at Ballinafad Church.
- The R336 (Scríb to Maam Cross), around 2km north of Scríb Waterfall
- The R344 near Gleninagh Cottage, Inagh Valley.
Galway County Council has also urged motorists travelling other roads in the Leenaun, Maam, Camus and Roundstone areas to exercise extreme caution with some roads flooded and others strewn with debris.
Some video footage of a tree down in Dublin has landed.
Bus Éireann has advised all customers that there will be significant service cancellations affecting its Donegal routes this afternoon due to the red weather warning issued by Met Eireann.
This includes Bus Éireann PSO services in Donegal and Bus Éireann Expressway routes that operate parts of their routes in Donegal. Expressway Routes 30 and 32 will not operate in Donegal during the red warning.
Full details of all service cancellations will be posted on the service updates section of its website.
Irish Rail’s 11.50am Connolly/Belfast service has stopped at Portadown due to flooding on the line.
Services are experiencing delays through Ashtown also, due to reports of a fallen tree near the line. Staff are en route to remove the tree, the company said this afternoon.
Four League of Ireland games, including Derry City’s title-impacting game against Sligo Rovers, and Ulster’s game against Edinburgh in the Hive Stadium have been postponed due to Storm Amy.
Initially due to the storm, Ulster’s kick-off time was brought forward a little over an hour from its original slot of 8.05pm. The fixture will be rescheduled for a later date.
David Gorman has a full round-up of the games that have been postponed due to Storm Amy here.
The National Directorate for Fire & Emergency Management, Met Éireann and relevant agencies met on Friday morning to discuss the arrival of Storm Amy.
Met Éireann is predicting strong winds up to gale force in some cases and heavy rain across the country, which could lead to localised flooding, travel disruption, fallen trees and possible power outages.
Met Éireann is advising the persistent and heavy rain will fall on already saturated grounds, with river levels increasing.
There is significant risk of flooding in the southwest particularly in mountainous areas of Kerry, west Cork and west Limerick and across counties Donegal, Galway, Leitrim and Roscommon, due to the heavy and persistent rainfall on Thursday and Friday.
Smaller upland and urban catchments in the southwest, west and northwest are at the greatest risk of flooding, as mountainous areas are forecast to see the greater rainfall accumulations.
Met Éireann has officially issued a red wind warning for Co Donegal from 4pm until 6pm.
An orange wind warning for Donegal, Galway Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo and Clare is in place from 2pm until 10pm.
A yellow wind warning is in place for the entire country until midnight.
A yellow rainfall warning is also in place for counties Galway and Kerry until 3pm.
Met Éireann is due to issue a red wind weather warning for Co Donegal from 4pm until 6pm on Friday, Keith Leonard of the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management, has just told RTÉ Radio 1.
Mr Leonard said during that period people should take shelter and conditions are expected to be “very tough” in the county.
“It looks like Donegal is going to bear the brunt of the storm,” he said.
Mr Leonard added: “Hopefully it will move away fairly quickly over tonight and into early tomorrow.
“But if I had one key message, it would be from that period of 4pm to 6pm in Donegal, to ask people to shelter in place for that amount of time and to be very careful on the roads before that warning comes into place and after because needless to say the travelling conditions will be difficult.
“A lot of rainfall is a key feature of this storm and trees down is going to be an issue as well.”
Donegal Airport is to close from 2pm in the interest of safety.
A number of towns in Co Monaghan have experienced flooding with the council advising of various road closures.
Here is some more footage from Nick Bradshaw in Salthill, Co Galway.
Following a pitch inspection at the RSC, Waterford v Drogheda United in the SSE Airticity Men’s Premier Division has also been postponed due to a waterlogged pitch amid adverse weather.
The fixture will now take place on Sunday, October 5th, at 4pm.
Following a pitch inspection at Ferrycarrig Park amid heavy rainfall in the area, tonight’s SSE Airtricity Men’s First Division fixture between Wexford and UCD has been postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.
This fixture will be rescheduled for this Sunday, October 5th, at 4pm.
Footage from Nick Bradshaw who is in An Spidéal, Co Galway.
ESB Networks has said high winds are expected to cause damage to electricity infrastructure, particularly in counties that will be under Met Éireann’s status orange wind warning.
Its crews and partner contractors around the country are making preparations in advance, with teams mobilised.
Reports of damages to the network can be made by calling 1800 372 999.
Water Safety Ireland is urging the public to exercise extreme caution near all bodies of water over the coming days.
The organisation is advising the public to avoid coastal areas, rivers, lakes and flood-prone zones as conditions deteriorate, with risks including powerful waves, sudden surges and fast-flowing currents.
Storm conditions significantly increase the danger in areas that are typically safe, it said in a statement on Friday.
“Water Safety Ireland is appealing to the public to prioritise safety and avoid putting themselves or emergency services at unnecessary risk.”
Heavy rain from Storm Amy has led to some traffic disruptions in west Cork with Cork County Council warning motorists to drive with caution in the Borlin Valley and Castledonovan near Bantry after heavy rain caused severe damage to roads in the area, Barry Roche reports.
According to Met Éireann, some 107mm of rain fell in nearby Glengarriff over a 22-hour period on Thursday leading Cork County Council to close the Tunnel Road between Glengarriff and Kenmare for a period before flood waters receded late on Thursday night.
Storm Amy is causing some disruption to flight operations around Ireland and the UK on Friday.
Wind speeds are due to increase in the Dublin area this afternoon, which may impact on flight schedules, Dublin Airport has said.
As of 10.30am, airlines have cancelled 12 flights (six inbound & six outbound).
Cork County Council has said its crews are continuing to respond to weather-related incidents and preparing for the arrival of Storm Amy.
Motorists are urged to drive with care especially in areas affected by flooding in west Cork with severe damage caused to road surfaces in Borlin and Castledonovan.
The R594 Madore and R587 at Ardcahan Bridge have both reopened to traffic while there is a tree down blocking access at Castlelands, Kinsale.
Uisce Éireann has said it is preparing for the arrival of Storm Amy by implementing its regional incident management processes to ensure the safety and continuity of its water services.
The expected heavy rainfall and high winds associated with Storm Amy may result in disruption in some parts of the country.
To mitigate potential issues, Uisce Éireann is taking precautions such as deploying generators at strategic locations and filling reservoirs to ensure water availability during the storm.
“It is important to note that high winds can cause power outages, and consequently, lead to a loss of water supply as treatment plants and pumps rely on electricity,” the utility company said on Friday.
“Uisce Éireann crews will mobilise and assess any damage to plants as soon as safe to do so and work to restore supply as quickly as possible.
“In the event of a loss of supply, most properties should have adequate storage in their attic tanks for hygiene purposes for at least 24 hours.”
A number of piers have been closed by Sligo County Council in advance of the orange warning.
Schools across counties Antrim, Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh have been told by the Education Authority (EA) in Northern Ireland to close at midday.
The EA said the decision had been taken in the interests of the safety of children, young people and staff as Storm Amy arrives across Ireland and the UK.
An EA statement said: “The amber warning covers the western half of Northern Ireland – counties Antrim, Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh.
“The Education Authority consulted with the Met Office to ensure there had been no overnight amendments to the alert.
“The alert applies to the period 3pm to 8pm today and is warning of a spell of damaging winds on Friday late afternoon and evening.
“It has cited the potential for power cuts and damage to buildings, including a risk of injuries from flying debris.”
Met Éireann said it needed to be sure that none of this year’s storms shared a name with any of the candidates for the forthcoming presidential election.
In discussions over the list for 2025 and 2026, the Irish meteorological service had said it was not yet sure who was running for the presidency, but wanted to alert colleagues in the UK and the Netherlands it was happening.
Read the full report from Ken Foxe here.
Tens of thousands of homeowners could find themselves without cover for certain flood damage after one of Ireland’s largest insurers pulled the plug on cover for future claims.
Zurich, which provides protection for about one in seven Irish homes and businesses, has moved to exclude any damage caused to buildings or contents by “water backing up from any sewer, drain or ditch, or any surface water run-off” from future claims.
Read Dominic Coyle’s full report here.
Preparations by local authorities were under way in the west, northwest and southwest of the country on Thursday night, before the arrival of Storm Amy.
Local authorities across the north and west are bracing themselves before the storm. In Donegal, members of the Civil Defence have been laying sandbags at houses.
In Galway, coastal car parks around the city are being closed until further notice by the council, and officials are advising motorists to move their vehicles from the locations that regularly flood, particularly in Salthill.
Council crews are monitoring the situation on Friday and will shut roads if necessary. High tide in Salthill is expected at around 3.30pm on Friday.
Woodlands under council management will be closed on Friday and will reopen, pending inspections by staff, after the storm abates. Galway’s City Museum will also close early, at 1pm, while Eastside Arts Festival events planned for Friday are cancelled.
The Irish Coast Guard is reminding the public to “stay back, stay high and stay dry” for the duration of the wind warnings.
Met Éireann meteorologist Ailís Hankinson said as Storm Amy is the first storm of the season, it is “essential to be prepared for potential impacts caused by the strong winds and the rain”.
“There could be difficult travelling conditions, loose objects or flying debris,” she said.
“Trees are still in leaf at this time of the year, so there could be higher impacts from fallen trees and leaves blocking drains, causing localised flooding. Small, upland river catchments are the most at risk of flooding, so precautions for potential localised flooding in these areas are also important.
“As always, we will provide updates of the situation as the certainty in the storm track and its intensity increases, so stay up to date with the warnings on met.ie, our app or our socials.”
Storm Amy is the remnants of Hurricane Humberto, which rattled the Caribbean and east coast of the United States in recent days.
Temperatures during the storm are predicted to be a couple of degrees warmer than Thursday, with peaks of 16 to 19 degrees on Friday.
A status red marine warning has been issued for Friday from Loop Head to Rossan Point and Fair Head, as Met Éireann is warning that winds may reach violent storm force 11.
Met Éireann forecaster Andrew Doran-Sherlock warned of “very difficult travelling conditions, the risk of fallen trees and damage to power lines and power outages” as the storm kicks in on Friday.
Good morning. Met Éireann has issued a status orange wind warning for counties Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo and Sligo, valid from 2pm to 10pm on Friday.
Additionally, a national yellow wind warning will be in place from midday on Friday to midnight on Saturday. Galway and Kerry are facing a yellow rain warning for Friday from 9am to 3pm.
The forecaster is warning of difficult travelling conditions and possible power outages as Storm Amy, the first named storm of the season, hits the country.
