People and businesses have been warned to remain alert for potential flooding after Storm Ciarán caused widespread damage and disruption with heavy rain and winds of up to 102mph hitting parts of England and the Channel Islands.
The threat of flooding remained high in the south of England as of Friday morning. Some of those caught up in the storm said they had not seen such extreme conditions for years, and the Met Office recorded a new November record for the lowest mean sea level atmospheric pressure in England and Wales.
Scores of people had to evacuate homes and hundreds of schools were shut. Roads were blocked by landslips and fallen trees and flights and bus, rail and shipping routes were affected. About 20,000 homes were left without power.
A police officer was taken to hospital for checks after a tree fell on his car in Loddiswell, south Devon, and the AA rescued a man with hypothermia from a flood in Newbury, Berkshire. Two buses were damaged by debris in strong winds in Capel-le-Ferne, Kent, though passengers escaped injury.
In Dorset, firefighters evacuated 70 people from 198 caravans at Freshwater Beach holiday park, near Bridport, with some being taken to dry land by boat.
Although the worst of the wind had abated by Thursday lunchtime, the Environment Agency warned that floods could follow, with so much rain falling on already saturated ground. By Friday morning, the agency had issued 90 flood warnings for England and 235 flood alerts. Natural Resources Wales said river levels in the far south-west of the country could be the highest ever recorded.
Yellow Met Office warnings for rain remained in place for much of England and Wales on Thursday night and for parts of north-east England and eastern Scotland on Friday. Another yellow warning was in place for Saturday for a stretch of southern England from Portsmouth to Canterbury.
The Channel Islands initially bore the brunt of Storm Ciarán, and the Jersey government said wind speeds had reached 102mph (164km/h). More than 60 people were evacuated from their homes on the island because of damage to buildings. Three people needed hospital treatment.
Large hailstones pounded the islands and there were nine-metre swells. The Jersey Met Section issued a red wind warning, its highest level. All flights from Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney airports on Thursday were cancelled and ferries to and from the islands were suspended, prompting concerns that supplies could run out. People were asked not to panic-buy.
All schools on Jersey remain closed as of Friday, with islanders urged to stay at home. Schools in Guernsey and Alderney are opening as normal except for the College of Further Education, which has suffered significant water damage.
Guernsey people are no longer being asked to stay indoors, but have been told to take extra precautions when travelling because of the state of the roads. Damage to properties in Jersey meant some residents had to evacuate their homes and seek refuge in a hotel, with one woman saying hailstones “bigger than a golf ball” had broken her windows.
Jersey Airport is closed to commercial flights, with Ports of Jersey saying engineers had discovered extensive infrastructure and equipment damage and system failures caused by the storm. An attempt to reopen the airport was expected at 2pm on Friday, while it remains operational in the meantime for emergencies and medical transfers.
The Met Office described the Channel Islands as having endured “supercell thunderstorms”, where locals faced frequent lightning, large hailstones and a possible hurricane.
Wind speeds of 77mph were recorded on the Isles of Scilly and 71mph at Langdon Bay in Kent.
Pondhu primary school in St Austell, Cornwall, will be shut on Friday due to extensive flooding, with the school saying it needs time to “dry and clean the building so the children can return safely”.
Commuters in southern England were urged to work from home by some rail companies, who said there was debris on many sections of line. A long queue of lorries formed on the A20, after Dover port briefly suspended all sailings.
Callout
The storm cut off the island of Portland in Dorset, which is connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway.
Heather Jones of the Stand Up to Racism group, who is in contact with asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm barge, berthed in Portland port, said: “Some people onboard are getting quite seasick. They have told me they got absolutely no sleep last night and the boat was shaking so much it was pretty scary.”
One man on the ship said: “The storm is very strong. The ship is like a cradle. I worry that one morning we will wake up and find we are in the middle of the ocean in the middle of nowhere.” A second said: “The ship shook a lot. My bed was shaking like a baby’s crib. It’s getting cold.”
A young cyclist and a walker were knocked over by waves at nearby West Bay and people in the village of Loders, just inland, said a “mini-tornado” had passed through.
Bridport fire station posted on Facebook: “Mobilised to alarms in Loders. On arrival we were met by damage to multiple properties and large amounts of debris strewn across the road after what was described by residents as a mini-tornado had passed through.”
Staff at the South Sands hotel in Salcombe, Devon, were mopping up after the downstairs restaurant was flooded. The owner, David Noble, said it was probably the worst storm he had experienced at the hotel since he bought it 14 years ago.
In south-west Wales, Kiln caravan site in Tenby was evacuated, where there was a severe flood warning on the River Ritec.
Mark Birch, the operations manager at Sandown and Shanklin independent lifeboat on the Isle of Wight, posted pictures of damage caused to the boathouse. He said: “In my 30-plus years down here I have not seen this amount of damage and destruction.”
The Met Office said a new record for the lowest mean sea level pressure recorded in England and Wales in November had been set, with a value of 953.3 hectopascals or millibars in Plymouth, Devon, and 958.5 in St Athan in south Wales.
⚠️ #StormCiarán has set a new record for the lowest mean sea level pressure recorded in England and Wales in November, with a value of 953.3 hPa (mb) in Plymouth and 958.5 hPa (mb) in St Athan
— Met Office (@metoffice) November 2, 2023
◾ The previous record in England was 959.7 hPa (mb), set in 1916
◾ The previous… pic.twitter.com/zruckdYR2K
The previous record in England was 959.7, set in 1916. For Wales it was 962.7, set in 2010. The record for the UK remains unbroken, and was set in Scotland in 1877 with a value of 939.7.
In northern France, the storm left one person dead and 1.2m homes without electricity on Thursday, with parts of Brittany and Normandy on red alert for strong winds and the rest of the north-west on orange alert. Wind speeds of more than 100mph were recorded.
The transport minister, Clément Beaune, said a truck driver had died in the Aisne department, north-east of Paris, when a tree fell on his truck.
Reuters reported that at least two people had died in Belgium and another person in the Netherlands as a result of the storm.
Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London, said: “There are a lot of lines of evidence showing that autumn and winter storms like this are more damaging because of climate change. That’s because the rainfall associated with these types of storms is more severe due to climate change, and the storm surges are higher and thus more damaging due to the higher sea levels.”
Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern said: “Hopefully the worst of it is now easing at it moves away … it’s still bringing quite a blustery wind to many places.”
A woman died when her car crashed into the River Tavy in west Devon on Thursday morning but Devon and Cornwall police said it was not believed to be weather-related.
