Storm Jocelyn has brought fresh travel disruption with 60mph winds blowing across Scotland, less than two days after Storm Isha left two people dead and thousands without power.
The 10th named storm of the season brought an amber warning for wind to parts of the country on Wednesday morning, while much of the UK is covered by a yellow alert into the afternoon.
All trains remain cancelled until at least noon while engineers check the network for fallen trees and other damage.
Dozens of roads have been closed, while flights have been canceled and ferries kept in port because of the high winds and bad weather.
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 into Wednesday morning.”
READ MORE: Storm Jocelyn to bring disruption to Scotland with wind and rain
Network Rail Scotland said it had dealt with incidents including flooding, fallen trees and a shed roof blowing onto a high wall above a track on Tuesday evening and would be inspecting routes for damage from first light.
A statement said: “It’ll be done in many ways – teams on foot, in road-rail vehicles, freight locos and empty passenger trains. Our helicopter will be out too, as soon as winds ease.”
ScotRail said all lines will be checked before services restart, saying “it will be later on in the day before any trains can run”.
A search for a person reported to be in the sea at Porthcawl, south Wales, was suspended early on Wednesday.
HM Coastguard said rescue teams from Porthcawl, Port Talbot, Llantwit Major and Llansteffan, together with an HM Coastguard helicopter from St Athan, were joined in the search by the RNLI’s all-weather lifeboats from Mumbles and Barry Dock after the report just before 6pm on Tuesday.
They said a decision on further action would be made at first light.
#StormJocelyn. 04:00 Our crews have cleared a fallen tree on the #A83 at Arrochar. pic.twitter.com/UjCNxEJWh6
— BEAR NW Trunk Roads (@NWTrunkRoads) January 24, 2024
The A76 was closed in both directions between Skelmorlie and Largs due to water breaking over the sea wall.
The Forth Bridge was open to cars and single decker buses with restrictions on high-sided vehicles on several bridges.
Eight flights were cancelled at Dublin Airport and four at Glasgow Airport on Tuesday evening.
An amber warning for wind, issued by the Met Office, is in place across the north and west of Scotland until 8am on Wednesday with a yellow warning in place until 1pm across Scotland, Northern Ireland, north Wales and northwest England.
Thw highest windspeed so far recorded was a gust of 97 mph in Capel Curig, Wales.
River flooding is also possible along parts of the upper River Severn in Shropshire until Friday.
READ MORE: All ScotRail services to be suspended during Storm Jocelyn
The number of flood warnings – meaning flooding was expected – has reached 38 in Scotland.
Forecasters expect winds to gradually ease from the south as Storm Jocelyn moves away from the UK on Wednesday, which will be a day of sunny spells and blustery showers, although mainly dry in the south.
Cloud and outbreaks of rain will move north east on Thursday with brighter conditions on Friday and Saturday and frequent showers in the north.
An 84-year-old man died during Storm Isha after the car in which he was a front seat passenger crashed into a fallen tree in Grangemouth, Falkirk, Police Scotland said.
And a man in his 60s 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.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel