STORM Ciarán’s strongest winds – up to ‘violent-storm-force-eleven’ – will hit the Island between 4am and 9am on Thursday, according to the latest forecast from Jersey Met.
The storm has the potential to be as powerful as the Great Storm of 1987, although the wind direction this time – from the more prevailing south-southwest direction – may mean that trees are more suited to withstand the strong gusts.
The unusual southerly direction of the 1987 storm was one of the reasons Jersey lost thousands of trees.
Coop stores will be closed until at least midday and LibertyBus has announced that all services will be cancelled until noon.
People are being urged to stay at home.
Storm Ciarán can be seen spiraling to the west of the English Channel, rapidly deepening before its appearance over the Channel Islands this evening, bringing heavy rain and damaging winds.
The worst of the winds are expected between 9pm today and 9am tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/HL5xsYLhLk— Jersey Met (@Jersey_Met) November 1, 2023
Giving an update on Wednesday afternoon, senior meteorologist manager Matt Winter said: “There will be exceptionally strong winds across the Channel Islands which we expect will bring significant disruption.
“We will start to feel the effects from 6pm today with rain – heavy and persistent at times – arriving, with further bands following throughout the night. The wind will start to pick up from 9pm onwards and will increase overnight, with the strongest winds expected between 4am and 9am tomorrow morning.”
He added: “The low-pressure area will pass north of the Channel Islands but the strongest winds will be in the southwest flank of that low pressure, and that will be passing directly over Jersey between that 4am to 9am period.
“We have been looking at a lot of data and are pretty confident it will be storm-force-ten coming from the west-southwest tomorrow morning, with occasional violent-storm-force, which is just below hurricane-force.
“The mean wind speed between 4am and 9am will be 65mph, with gusts of 90-95 mph. Having a mean wind speed of that strength is exceptionally rare for the Channel Islands.”
Mr Winter said that the Storm Ciarán had the potential to be as strong as the memorable and highly disruptive one on 16 October 1987.
He said: “The low pressure system has a similar depth to it and the mean wind speed and gusts are of a similar strength.
“The difference is that the wind direction then was from a south to southeast direction, which meant that there was the potential for more damage.
“This time, the strongest winds will be coming from a west-south-westerly direction which is more usual; nevertheless, there is still the potential for significant disruption.
Mr Winter added: “It is important to say that, after 9 am tomorrow, it does not mean that the winds will suddenly drop off. It will be a gradual process and there will remain gale to severe-gale-force winds throughout much of the day tomorrow.”
Forming off the east coast of North America, in the Nova Scotia area, Storm Ciarán is currently 500-600 miles west of France, moving towards the Channel Islands at a rapid rate.
