It's already been a week since Storm Eowyn and how the weather has changed. High pressure instead of the deep low but many in Northern Ireland are still without power.
It’s been a week since Storm Eowyn and Friday the 31st couldn’t be more different to the wild storm day of January 24th when people in Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland sheltered at home. All of Ireland was covered with red warnings from Thursday night and the Isle of Man also had a red warning as the impactful low pressure moved in from the Atlantic. A week later there is high pressure over the UK, with light winds and dry and quiet conditions. For everyone who experienced disrupted events or appointments, it shows that you can’t rely on the British weather when planning ahead.
Slowly across Scotland, most affected homes and businesses have been reconnected to their power supplies. There is still plenty of debris and branches lying about and broken trees. Sawn trunks are being moved and cleared.
The picture for Northern Ireland and Ireland is still bleak and slow. The PowerCheck maps show a rash of ongoing power supply issues and there are also interruptions to phone lines and water supplies. Of course without electricity then people can’t charge their mobile phones and ESB networks in Ireland are still warning people about
“Fallen Electricity Wires are live and dangerous. Never approach or touch them. Call our emergency service immediately”
and by the 30th had restored “power to 682,000 customers impacted by Storm Éowyn” continuing to work to reach the many farms and villages. The initial response was delayed as Eowyn cleared and Herminia moved in from the SW with strong winds and heavy rain. The remote nature of where many of the power cables are and that they need replacing, is making the recovery difficult.
Communities and councils in all these areas have tried to help with hot meal vans, provision for cleaning even temporary accommodation but this is a dark, cold time of year.
Winds in the storm gusted widely over 80mph with the highest gust in southern Scotland at Drumalbin, Lanarkshire at 100mph. The Met Office said that it was the most powerful UK wind storm for over a decade and for Northern Ireland, since the Boxing Day Storm of 1998.
Tiree off the west coast of Scotland recorded a low pressure of 941.9hPa and the lowest pressure since Christmas Eve 2013.
This was an exceptional event for the island of Ireland and northern Britain, not only for the damage and disruption in the red-warned areas but also in the amber-warned regions. It felt like a throwback to Covid lockdown, being told to stay indoors all day.
There was also heavy rain and wild seas for areas exposed to the west or southwest.
So much of our lives now is online or through our mobile phones and the storm impacted those. Ofcom is involved in and monitors 'Resilience to climate change in the telecoms sector' reporting to DEFRA in the UK government.
“Climate change is leading to more uncertain and severe weather conditions. Over recent years, we have seen changes in our climate having increasing impacts on telecoms infrastructure. Weather conditions are more uncertain, and we have seen severe weather (typically storms and flooding), such as Storm Arwen, which could significantly disrupt or damage telecommunications networks. For example, it could cause a mains power loss, or direct physical damage to telecoms infrastructure resulting from storm damage such as downed overhead cables. Without appropriate action, it could become increasingly likely that we experience significant telecoms outages, that could threaten human life. In these cases, the resilience of UK networks to maintain services, particularly emergency services, is made more important." OFCOM
Landlines are disappearing or the telephone that people have for their landline now needs mains power to work. Nearly 80% of calls to the emergency services in 2023 were from a mobile phone which is why an important part of preparing for a storm is to charge devices and any power banks.
If you did keep your power and internet connection, it probably slowed down and some mobile networks were also affected. "Consistency — an important metric indicating the proportion of Speedtest samples meeting minimum download and upload speed thresholds — dropped sharply on the day of the storm and remained suppressed on the day following the storm (25th January) in Northern Ireland." ISPreview
For southern Britain, this storm was not such an impactful event but for many Eowyn (Ay-o-win) will be remembered, much like Arwen back in November 2021, for a long time to come.
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