The Met Office has updated the amber and yellow wind warning associated with Storm Dudley that's set to hit Wales.
Strong winds will cross north Wales, western Scotland and Northern Ireland on Wednesday afternoon, pushing eastward to northern England by evening.
The warnings had been due to start at 3pm, but on Wednesday morning the Met Office brought forward the start time by two hours to 1pm for the yellow warning, and 2pm for the amber warning. They will both end at midnight, before Storm Eunice arrives on Friday. You can follow live updates here .
Areas covered by the warnings remain the same. Gusts inland of 60-70 mph are likely, perhaps briefly 75-80 mph in a few places, mostly exposed sites.
A further wind warning has also been issued for Thursday between 1am and 6am on Friday.
In a Met Office daily forecast video, meteorologist Alex Deakin has warned people in the affected areas to brace for "heavy rain and ever-strengthening winds".
"It's going to be a windy day throughout with those winds continuing to pick up through the afternoon and the evening," he said.
"There will be some snow on the hills across Scotland, but it's the rain and more particularly the wind we're concerned about in this storm system on Wednesday. It's likely to cause transport disruption and dangerous conditions by the sea."
Motorists have been urged to drive carefully, while electricity supply firms have issued warnings following the widespread outages in northern England and Scotland which followed storms earlier this year.
Western Power Distribution operations director Graham Halladay says: “We know that storm conditions can be a worrying time for our customers, so we have put a range of measures in place to ensure we’re ready for any impact on the electricity network.
“Preparations will be in place so that, whatever the weather, we can work to restore power supplies quickly and safely for you if they are disrupted.”
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