UK gripped by worst storms in a decade as Storm Jocelyn follows 107mph Isha

The UK is set to be battered by a tenth storm in just five months in the wake of Storm Isha, which left two people dead and thousands without power following gusts of up to 107mph on Monday.

Storm Jocelyn is set to hit the UK tomorrow and marks the earliest the country has hit the letter J in Met Office’s alphabetical naming system since it was introduced in 2015-16.

Weather experts have warned UK storms are likely to become more frequent in the future, with rising sea levels among the factors behind an increase in severe storms.

“These are some of the worst in the last ten years,” said Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society.

“It’s been one after another and they’ve been so persistent.

“Unfortunately there is more to come over the next ten years and this will eventually become the norm.”

The UK storm season runs from September through to the end of August. The furthest a storm season has reached in the alphabet is the letter K, when Storm Katie was named in March 2016 – it would take just two more storms before the end of the March for 2023-24 to beat this record.

Before the naming system was introduced, there were 12 winter storms between mid-December to mid-February 2014, described by the Met Office as “the stormiest period of weather the UK has experienced for at least 20 years”.

Tree surgeons remove a fallen tree from a car during Storm Isha in Linlithgow, West Lothian (Photo: Lesley Martin/Reuters)

The Met Office said although trends in storm numbers are difficult to detect “due to how these naturally vary year-to-year and decade-to-decade”, forecasters expect the frequency of storms to increase as sea level rises.

A spokesperson said: “Most climate projections indicate that winter windstorms will increase slightly in number and intensity over the UK… including disproportionately more severe storms.”

Storm Isha brought travel chaos as it swept across the UK, causing widespread train and flight cancellations which are expected to last into Tuesday and Wednesday as Storm Jocelyn arrives with winds of up to 80mph on Tuesday afternoon.

Fresh weather warnings have been issued across much of the UK for Tuesday and Wednesday, with amber “danger to life” warnings in place across parts of northern Scotland.

Two people are known to have died as a result of Storm Isha, with an 84-year-old man killed by a falling tree as he sat in the passenger seat of a car in Falkirk, Scotland, on Sunday night.

A man in his sixties was killed in a crash involving two vans and a fallen tree in Limavady, Co Londonderry, on Sunday night, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said.

Around 150,000 homes were left without power across the UK, with around 17,000 in Northern Ireland and 14,000 in Scotland still without electricity as of Monday afternoon.

A farmer moves branches and debris from a tree that fell into the graveyard at St Josephs Church in Glenavy, Northern Ireland (Photo: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

Strong winds saw train services ScotRail and LNER suspend services in Scotland, with ScotRail warning its trains will be suspended again from 7pm due to Storm Jocelyn.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of passengers had flights delayed, cancelled or diverted as a result of Storm Isha.

Passengers have told i they were stuck on the runway for 11 hours in total, while one Ryanair flight from Manchester to Dublin was diverted 500 miles away to Paris on Sunday.

Declan Cassidy, 56, who was on-board the flight, said: “It was exhausting. I’ve never been in a saga like this and never been diverted to such an extent – a 35-minute plane journey quickly turned into 11 hours.

“Babies were running out of formula – I felt for young families.”

Flightradar data also reveals that another Ryanair flight from Tenerife for Dublin was diverted to France, while a plane headed for Scotland was rerouted to Germany as winds and downpours battered the UK and Ireland.

A Ryanair flight from Murcia to Dublin was diverted to Manchester, with passengers claiming they were left waiting on the runway for 11 hours without food, water, or toilet roll.

Gusts of up to 90mph led to huge waves on the sea front at Blackpool and many other coastal resorts (Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire)

Lia Dower, 34, told i the whole journey was “chaotic and a complete nightmare.”

“It was surreal as well, I was thinking how have we been here for 11 hours? It’s really hard to believe. The communication was dreadful,” she said.

Authorities across the island reported fallen trees on roads and urged people not to try to move them as there may be electricity lines tangled within.

A number of trees made famous by the TV series Game of Thrones were damaged and felled by the storm in Co Antrim.

Work was carried out on Monday to clear up at the Dark Hedges site.

The tunnel of trees became famous when it was featured in the HBO fantasy series and now attracts significant numbers of tourists from around the world.

Passengers at London Euston following train delays as Storm Isha brought severe disruption to rail services (Photo: Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire)

Met Office forecaster Steve Willington said Storm Jocelyn is likely to bring further disruption on Tuesday and Wednesday.

He said: “Although this system will be a step down relative to Storm Isha, with the damage and clean up still under way, we could potentially see more impacts from Storm Jocelyn.

“Outbreaks of heavy rain on Tuesday could bring rainfall accumulations of 15 to 20mm quite widely with 40 to 50mm over higher ground in south-west Scotland, the Scottish Highlands and parts of north-west England.

“Wind gusts are expected to reach 55 to 65 mph across north-western Scotland while there is potential for winds to gust to 75 to 80 mph in a few places, in particular exposed parts of the Western Isles and coastal northwest Scotland early on Wednesday morning.”

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This year’s storm season has seen storms named in every month so far: Agnes in September 2023, Babet in October, Ciarán and Debi in November, Elin, Fergus and Gerrit in December and Henk, Isha and Jocelyn in January 2024.

It is rare, but not unheard of, for the UK to experience a sequence of storms across a handful of months.

Last year’s storm season, which ran from September 2022 to August 2023, made it only as far as the letter B, with Storm Betty in August.

Martin Thomson, national operations manager for Resilience at Transport Scotland, said: “Across the wider network, we can expect to see more delays and cancellations with ferries, flights and rail from Tuesday into Wednesday morning.

“Please check with your public transport operator for the latest information and your local authority and Police Scotland for the latest information on local roads.”