LAST UPDATE | 19 Feb 2022

MET ÉIREANN HAS issued new weather warnings for this evening, Sunday and Monday with high winds and heavy rain expected in parts of the country.

This includes an orange warning for Donegal for Monday morning and a forecast of ‘phenomenal waves’ in some areas.

After a warning of heavy showers today, strong winds with some dangerous gusts are the main focus of the warnings from Sunday.

Saturday

• A status yellow rain warning from 6pm Sunday for Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo and Sligo with persistent rain followed by heavy showers forecast and localised flooding expected in places.

Sunday

• A status yellow rain warning remains in place until 6pm for Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo and Sligo
• A separate status yellow wind warning for Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Donegal, and Connacht comes into effect at 5am and remains in place until 9am Monday, with very strong southwesterly winds and some severe gusts, veering west to northwest by Monday, combined with ‘phenomenal waves’ bringing the potential of coastal flooding
• Another status yellow wind warning for Leinster, Cavan, Monaghan, Tipperary, Waterford comes into effect at 11am until 9am Monday.

Monday

• A status orange wind warning for Donegal comes into effect at 1am, lasting until 7am, with warnings of ‘severe west to northwest winds with some damaging gusts are possible on Sunday night’, in addition to the coastal flooding warning
• The status yellow wind warnings for Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Donegal, Connacht, Leinster, Cavan, Monaghan, Tipperary, and Waterford remain in place until 9am.

The UK Met Office has also issued weather warnings for Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry with high winds expected from midday Sunday to midday on Monday.

Storm Eunice

Some 2,500 homes were still without power as of 6.30 pm today in the aftermath of Storm Eunice, the ESB said in a statement this afternoon.

A spokesperson added, “Due to the severity of the damage to the electricity network in the southwest region, some customers in south Kerry and west Cork will again be without power overnight and we apologise for the particular difficulty this causes.”

The southeast and southwest of the country bore the brunt of the storm yesterday morning and power outages remain most widespread in Kerry and Cork.

A council worker in Co Wexford died yesterday while working to clear debris after being struck by a falling tree. 

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Kerry County Council said this morning its staff are working with Irish Water and ESB Networks to restore services to affected premises.

Power is not expected to be returned to some homes in those counties until later this afternoon or this evening, according to the ESB’s outage map.

People are advised to visit powercheck.ie to see estimated restoration times if they are in an impacted area. 

Additional reporting by Nicky Ryan