Storm Ciarán is likely to bring strong winds, heavy rain and the risk of flooding across southern England and Wales later in the week, the Met Office has said.
Forecasters announced the new storm name on Sunday morningfollowing the havoc wreaked in recent weeks by Storm Agnes and Storm Babet.
Named after a civil servant, Ciarán is forecast to bring very strong winds and heavy rain to southern parts of the UK on Wednesday night and into Thursday.
Chris Almond, the Met Office’s deputy chief meteorologist, said: “Winds associated with Storm Ciarán are likely to gust to 80mph along the south coast of England, with a small risk of somewhere exposed seeing 90mph, and winds could even gust up to 50 or 60 mph farther inland.
“This deep low-pressure system will also bring heavy rain to much of the UK, but the heaviest rain is expected in southern and western areas, with 20-25mm quite widely across the region but up to 40-60mm potentially over higher ground.
“Heavy and persistent rain will fall on to already saturated ground, bringing a risk of further impacts such as flooding in areas that are already struggling to clean up from the heavy rainfall we have seen over the last week or so.”
People were urged to follow Met Office weather warnings. Yellow warnings are in place for every day until Thursday.
On Sunday and Monday warnings for heavy rain covered eastern Scotland, north-east England, south-west Wales and south-east England. An additional yellow warning for Monday covers a large part of Northern Ireland.
The Storm Ciarán yellow warning begins at 6pm on Wednesday and remains in place for the whole of Thursday. It covers south-east England, the west country and south Wales and comes with warnings of flooding and disruption to public transport.
Many parts of the UK are still clearing up after Storm Babet, which caused at least seven deaths and left hundreds homeless due to flooding.
Babet has finished, but the threat is not over, agencies have warned. On Sunday in England 73 flood warnings remained in place, including in Alfriston in the South Downs and the Wye estuary at Brockweir in the Forest of Dean. There were also 176 flood alerts, which are issued when flooding is thought possible.
In Scotland there were 15 flood warnings and 11 flood alerts. In Wales there were seven flood warnings and 17 flood alerts.
A roof was ripped off a house, and cars and other properties were damaged when a tornado hit a West Sussex town on Saturday night.
The Tornado and Storm Research Organisation carried out an investigation on Sunday and told the BBC a “definite tornado” had hit Littlehampton.
The naming of storms is a joint enterprise between the UK’s Met Office and equivalent bodies in the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands.
Ciarán is named after Ciarán Fearon, who works for the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland on sharing information on river levels, coastal flooding and the impact of severe weather.
After Ciarán it could be Debi, Elin and Fergus, with names going all the way up to Walid, although it would be an exceptional year if that many names were used. In the 2022-23 season only two were named by the Met Office, Antoni and Betty; while in 2021-22 there were six, including the devastating Storm Arwen.
