Elected Member Briefing - Storm Éowyn

About this Briefing Note

Report by: Greg Boland, Strategic Lead - Planning, People and Performance

EMBN Number: 007-25

Date: 23 January 2025

Subject: Storm Éowyn

Details

Purpose

These briefing note provides an update on preparations for the arrival of Storm Éowyn on Friday January 24.

Briefing Information

Red Weather Warnings have been issued by the Met Office with Storm Éowyn forecast to bring disruptive winds as well as heavy rain and snow across Scotland on Friday.

An Amber weather warning for wind is in place for Perth and Kinross from 1pm on Friday January 24 to 6am on Saturday January 25, with yellow weather warnings for wind and snow in place for all day on Friday.

We will be increasing our standby cover in Aberfeldy, Blairgowrie and Perth depots. This will ensure we have operatives available to manage any wind-related issues and leave winter maintenance operatives to concentrate on gritting.

An IMT will take place at 2pm today and a further update will be issued after that.

Warnings have been issued on social media and we will provide further updates when necessary to alert residents to any issues.

The Met Office is advising the storm will bring the strongest winds seen in Scotland since "Hurricane Bawbag" in 2011.

While it will be widely very windy on Friday, with additional hazards from rain and snow, the strongest winds and most significant impacts are likely in Northern Ireland and central and southwestern parts of Scotland within the Red Warning areas, where winds could gust 80-90 mph, and potentially up to 100 mph for exposed coasts.

In other areas winds could reach 70 to 80mph in exposed areas.

Storm Éowyn,will begin to influence the UK's weather early on Friday, with strengthening winds initially in southwestern parts of the UK with accompanying heavy rainfall. This will quickly spread northeast to the rest of the UK during Friday morning.

Storm Éowyn is expected to cross Northern Ireland early on Friday morning. It will then continue northeast across the northern half of Scotland during Friday afternoon and is expected to be centred near Shetland during Friday evening.

Although Perth and Kinross is not in the Red Weather warning area, it will still likely see disruptive weather, with travel plans likely to be impacted, as well as the possibility of power cuts in some areas.

SSEN has contacted vulnerable customers on their Priority Services Register (PSR) to advise them of potential disruption to supplies.

SSEN is also ready to share data on customers on the PSR with other agencies if required due to longer than expected power cuts.

All planned work has been suspended on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to allow SSEN staff to concentrate on repairing the network and restoring supplies, if necessary.

Outages can be reported by calling 105 or using the SSEN Power Tracker App.

After Storm Éowyn on Friday and early on Saturday, further wet and windy weather is likely on Sunday and at the start of next week, with further warnings issued.