Storm Isha - Sunday 21/Monday 22 January 2024

Massive Thunder, lightning and flickering lights here in Achill now. Seems directly to the north of me. Didn't expect this before tomorrow.

There sure was. Don't 'keel' over with the fright

Of course, Nacho. It sure looks like it. Trees aren't laden with leaves this time of year though so that's one plus. Another is that the worst of the winds occur outside of high tide on the west coast. There is an element of the unknown about a countrywide wind event though. I can't believe the GAA hasn't called off their club final games yet 🙄

I really hope this turns out to be a major anticlimax.

It needs to ... all we have got since that war started is winter winter winter and more winter ... last good summer was 2021 ... and all we get is lightning and rain and wind .... let us hope this is not a hurricane .... everyone is talking like it is but I do not see the official evidence yet ... either way still miserable unwanted weather ... give us something else ... but I do not think that will happen until this war ends ... it sucks in wind to fill the void caused by vacuum ... 31st December 2021 to May 2022 was the last time we had a really long spell of proper settled weather ...

Storm Isha has the potential to generate some very damaging gusts overland during Sunday. The overnight model output varies to some degree regarding the location of strongest winds, but it all points to this being a notable storm mainly due to its wide geographic impact. Nowcast territory.

I have upgraded the storm comparison table since I last posted it with lots more of the named storms that have impacted Ireland since naming began in 2015-16. Boards will compress the hell out of the image as I post it but oh well. The sustained winds counterpart is still in the works, been saying that for a few years now I know..

Using this table, the storms with the largest wind field or impacted the highest number of stations are:

Darwin (12 February 2014) had 23 of the 25 stations with yellow warranted gusts or greater.

Ali (19 September 2018), Ophelia (16 October 2017) and Erich (27 December 2013) had 22 of the 25 stations with yellow warranted wind gusts or greater.

Highest average max wind gust storms nationally:

Darwin 122 km/h

Ophelia 107 km/h

Doris (23 February 2017) 106 km/h

Erich 105 km/h

Ulli (03 January 2012) 104 km/h

Ali 103 km/h

I shall update on this again on Monday.

Based on this mornings runs looks like we could see Donegal, Connacht, Much of Munster and south Leinster upgraded to a red.

UK Met Office must be thinking about it for Northern Ireland also.

Isha is after waking me up! Wasn't expecting the worst of her until much later.

Arpege which looked way ott a few days ago now looks to have been on the money, a last minute shift north would be very welcome, total nowcast for the rest of the day. Very interesting how Met Eireann interpret it - somewhere is likely to end up with Red level conditions.

Appreciate people get annoyed about queries on flights here and that it's hard to say but struggling to make a call on this and would appreciate if there's is any advice other than wait and see what airline says. (It's Ryanair )

Has anyone flown in what these conditions look like they will be? Based on current models will a flight landing in Dublin around 1am miss the worst or likely to be cancelled, heavily delayed, or do they usually just plough through unless there's a red?

Can change the flight for reasonable price but it's another night of accom and another day of leave from work. Ryanair unlikely to update until late in the day so would prefer not to make unnecessary journey to airport with babies if highly likely we won't get away. No worries if can't say, Thanks

Yes it's the overland gusts shrown right across the Midlands that's most concerning from a damage and risk to life point of view. 90 or 100km gusts in the middle of the country would do 10 times the damage of 130km in the North west.

I don't recall any storms in recent years with such strong and widespread inland gusts?

The worst of it for Dublin looks like being 7pm to around 11pm. It looks like being a windy flight but shouldn't be cancelled.

Gusts sounding quite frequent and a constant drone of wind already outside my window in south Dublin @08:24!

When are we expecting the worst of this in the Dublin area?

In the SW here and there's been constant strong wind with regular squally gusts since at least 06:30 with no sign of it moving away.