Worst storm of winter on the way, say weathermen

SCOTLAND could escape the worst of the latest blast of weather chaos across the UK as high tides and low pressure look set to produce the worst storm of winter.

Flood warnings were in place last night on some Scottish rivers, but were not as severe as those in England and Wales where people were advised to stay indoors. The Environment Agency and Maritime and Coastguard Agency both issued advice not to go near the coast.

In Scotland, Caledonian MacBrayne ferries last night braced themselves for more disruption to their services, blaming higher tides for a spate of weekend diversions of vessels.

The Met Office forecast winds of up to 80mph and high seas throughout today and into tomorrow in England and Wales, with a warning of storm force ten winds in the English Channel. Gale force eight winds were forecast for the Outer Hebrides last night, but the Met Office did not issue any weather alerts for Scotland.

A severe low-pressure system started sweeping across Northern Ireland before turning south-east into England in the early hours of Monday.

A second front is expected to hit the south later in the day.

Paul Hutcheon, a Met Office forecaster, said: "Scotland will avoid the worst of the conditions. The event will probably be a 24-hour event, with two very strong spells of wind. The first will be across a larger area of the country, and the second in southern England and Wales."

Last night, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) issued flood warnings for the River Tay, from Kenmore to the A9 road bridge upstream of Dunkeld, the River Lyon and the River Tummel, downstream of the Pitlochry Dam to Ballinluig.

Winter disruption of transport links to Scotland's island communities looked set to continue this week because of the weather. CalMac ferries were diverted on Saturday morning in the Firth of Clyde, and bosses said it was a preview of possible disruptions on Monday. The 8:20am from Arran and 9:30am from Rothesay were both diverted to Gourock because of high waters.

Hugh Dan MacLennan, communications director, said the largest problem was the size of the sea swell. The firm diverted the 6pm sailing last night from Kennacraig to Port Askaig, cancelling the 4:15am Monday crossing from Port Ellen. Services between Berneray and Leverburgh in the Sound of Harris were also disrupted because of high tides.

It is the higher water levels that could cause the most problems in England and Wales, combining with severe wind speeds and the low pressure.

Rising water on Saturday also trapped a refuse lorry when two of its wheels slipped off a causeway to St Mary's Island, in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside. Two men escaped safely and the van was later recovered once the sea receded.

Storm surges are caused mainly by wind on the sea's surface. But the Met Office explained that a barometric pressure decrease of one millibar causes sea levels to rise by one centimetre. So, a depression with a central pressure of about 960mb causes sea levels to rise half a metre above its average level of 1,013mb.

In eastern England, strong wind and very low pressure combined can raise sea levels by more than two metres. Surges rarely coincide with high tides, said the Met Office. The lowest pressure ever recorded in the UK was 925.6mb at Ochtertyre, near Stirling, in 1884.

The Coastguard said storm-force ten winds ranging to violent storm 11 in some areas could combine with spring tides to "push" seawaters into low lying coastal parts of the UK.

A spokesman said: "The public are advised not to go wave-watching during these gales, as the sea will become very rough and affected coastal areas will become very dangerous."

Paul Leinster, Environment Agency director of operations, said: "There will be a potent cocktail of strong winds, wave action and high tides through until Wednesday.

"The gale-force winds will combine with spring high tides to significantly elevate the water levels along the coast by up to 1.5 metres over normal levels, which is likely to cause some flooding."

P&O Ferries cancelled its sailings from Portsmouth to Bilbao yesterday and Tuesday because of the severe weather warning.

Counting the cost of dangerous weather in the UK

THE greatest storm surge recorded on the North Sea happened on 31 January and 1 February, 1953.

It reached a height of 2.74m at Southend in Essex, 2.97m at King's Lynn in Norfolk and 3.36m in the Netherlands.

Hurricane-force winds blew down more trees in Scotland than were normally felled in a year. The Princess Victoria car ferry, sailing from Stranraer to Larne in Northern Ireland, sank with the loss of 133 lives. Only 41 of the passengers and crew survived. From Yorkshire to the Thames Estuary, coastal defences had been pounded by the sea and given way under the onslaught.

The British winter of 1946-47 was one of the most severe on record to affect the UK, with prolonged frost and snow from 21 January to 16 March, 1947.

But it was an event 40 years later that held infamy for severe weather. BBC weatherman Michael Fish bore the public backlash after dismissing warnings before the storms of 15 and 16 October, 1987 hit the south of England, the worst since the Great Storm of 1703, causing the deaths of 23 people.

In Scotland, the Burns' Day Storm on 25 and 26 January, 1990, caused widespread damage with hurricane-force winds over a wide area. The storm was responsible for 97 deaths across Europe. It ended up costing insurers £3.37 billion. At the time, a low pressure of 949mb – in line with a strong category three hurricane – was recorded near Edinburgh.