Red weather alert for Mayo

High winds and ‘incessant’ rain to batter the county

Anton McNulty

Mayo residents have been warned to batten down the hatches over the weekend with high winds and heavy rain expected to hit the county.
Met Éireann this morning issued a Red alert for rainfall, and an Orange alert for wind over the next 36 hours. The forecaster says ‘incessant falls of heavy rain’ will fall overnight and all Saturday morning, with rainfall in excess of 70mm expected. Met Éireann also warned that there may be greater amounts of rainfall on higher ground.
The Red warning covers all of Connacht, Donegal, Clare and Kerry, with Mayo expected to get the brunt of the downfall.
Added to the heavy rainfall, Met Éireann also issued a status Orange warning for high winds for Mayo, Galway, Leitrim, Sligo, Clare and Donegal.
The weather service is forecasting southwest winds with average speeds of 55 to 75km/h, with gusts of 100 to 120km/h. The winds will be strongest for coastal areas and is expected start today and rage until late on Saturday afternoon.
Red and Orange warnings are the two highest weather alerts which Met Éireann can issue, and they are issued to warn the public of potential hazards the weather can bring.
Status Red warnings are issued for relatively rare and severe weather events, and they imply that recipients should ‘take action to protect themselves and/or their properties’. “This could be by moving their families out of the danger zone temporarily; by staying indoors; or by other specific actions aimed at mitigating the effects of the weather conditions,” the forecaster says.
An Orange alert is for weather conditions which have ‘the capacity to impact significantly on people in the affected areas’. The issue of an Orange level weather warning implies that all recipients in the affected areas should prepare themselves in an appropriate way for the anticipated conditions.