Here’s an interesting read by Stuart Markham on the upcoming Atlantic duo set to strike the UK this Christmas weekend. Always good to get other perspective…

MY THOUGHTS YESTERDAY: Atlantic To Deal Double Blow To UK/Ireland Christmas Weekend, 1st Storm Named!

By Stuart Markham www.chorleyweather.com

The Met Office have named storm Barbara which is expected to bring severe wind gusts through Friday across many northern areas of the UK, Scotland worse affected but then there is a possibility that we may see another storm being named which would impact Christmas day, if named the storm will be called Conor and this one has the potential to bring more widespread disruption.

Starting with storm Barbara then and below we can see the storm located to the W/NW of the UK with tightly packed isobars meaning very strong winds are likely.

Severe S/SW’ly winds develop during Friday with 50, 60 mph winds across many western areas but we could easily see 70 to 80 mph gusts along the more exposed areas across W Scotland. Further west out in the Atlantic this model predicts wind gusts in excess of 100 mph, which could be linked to a sting jet. This will need close monitoring as the system closes in.

On top of the winds we have rain to contend with as well with a area of rainfall, some of which could be rather heavy, expected across the region later on Friday, so please bear this in mind if you’re out on Mad Friday!!!

So plenty going on during Friday and if that wasn’t bad enough, the next potentially named storm could be on its way for Christmas day.

This system has the potential to prove much more damaging to a wider area as winds gusts over 50 mph can be expected pretty much across the whole UK, with gusts in excess of 60 to 70 across many northern areas and across Scotland we could see localised gusts of up to 90 mph. So plenty going on but rest assured you wont miss anything as we’ll be updating very regularly through the week and through the weekend as well.