Mapped: Where Storm Ciarán will hit UK as new ‘danger to life’ warning issued

Storm Ciarán is set to batter the UK this week as the Met Office has issued amber ‘danger to life’ warnings for “very strong winds” across England and Wales.

Exposed English coastal regions could be lashed by gusts of up to 90mph, as flying debris, blown-off roofs and power cuts are expected across the country.

There are both amber and yellow warnings for wind in place from Wednesday night until the end of Thursday and will affect large swathes of England and Wales.

It comes as Northern Ireland has been hit with flooding after a night of torrential rain, which saw a city canal burst its banks in Newry, Co Down.

Roads have been closed due to the heavy flooding, while train passengers on the main Belfast to Dublin route faced significant disruption on Tuesday morning due to flooded tracks between Portadown and Newry.

In England, there are at least 25 flood warnings- where flooding is expected- and 118 flood alerts- where flooding is possible.

There are currently 10 weather warnings in place across the UK which span the next three days.

This map shows the areas under weather warnings:

Areas impacted by amber weather warning for wind:

Met Office deputy chief meteorologist Chris Almond said: “Winds associated with Storm Ciaran 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 60mph further 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 to 25mm quite widely across the region but up to 40 to 60mm potentially over higher ground.

“Heavy and persistent rain will fall onto the 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.”

The third named storm of this year’s season comes after areas across Scotland and north-east England were battered with the worst of Storm Babet, which caused serious damage and several deaths when it hit last week.