The Met Office has issued an amber “danger to life” warning for today, ahead of Storm Ciarán’s arrival on Wednesday evening.
The forecaster’s latest warning for rain will be in place in Northern Ireland from 9pm tonight until 9am on Tuesday.
They also say communities in the region could be “completely cut off” for “several days” by floodwater which could cause a risk to life.
The forecasters have warned of “strong winds and heavy rain” as the third named storm of the season is set to sweep across the UK later this week.
Ciarán is due to bring gusts of 80mph winds to areas along the south coast of England, with a small risk of some more exposed areas seeing wind speeds of up to 90mph. Meanwhile, up to 60mm of rain is expected to fall in some areas.
Met office Deputy Chief Meteorologist, Chris Almond, said: “Heavy and persistent rain will fall onto already saturated ground bringing a risk of further impacts such as flooding in areas that are already struggling to clean up from the heavy rainfall we have seen over the last week or so.”
