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Weather alert: Storm Eva is coming to batter Ireland before Christmas

Batten down the holly.

Updated at 7.10am

ANOTHER STORM IS set to batter the country in the days leading up to Christmas.

An orange alert weather warning has been issued by Met Éireann. The system’s strong enough to warrant a name under the new Anglo-Irish storm-naming system.

This one’s called Eva – and it’s the fifth to hit this winter, after Abigail, Barney, Clodagh and Desmond, which swept across the country at the start of the month, leading to heavy flooding across the Shannon region.

Three weather warnings were issued by the weather service yesterday afternoon and remain in place until at least midnight tonight.

The Road Safety Authority is also advising drivers to exercise caution behind the wheel.

weather earth.nullschool.net earth.nullschool.net

Here are the details of the weather alerts:

Status Orange: Wind warning for Donegal, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Clare

Southerly winds veering southwest of mean speeds of 60 to 65km/h gusting 100 to 110km/h expected, with stronger winds of mean speeds of 65 to 80km/h with gusts of 120km/h at times between 1600 and 2100hrs.

In effect from 1pm today until midnight.

Status Yellow: Wind Warning for Leinster, Cavan, Monaghan, Leitrim, Roscommon, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford

Southerly winds of mean speeds of 60 to 65km/h gusting 100 to 110km/h expected tonight.

In effect from 1pm today until midnight.

PastedImage-8154 The wind picture this morning. The wind picture this morning.

Status Yellow: Weather Advisory for Donegal, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Clare

A developing storm is expected to track to the west and northwest of Ireland later today and tonight will bring some severe winds to coastal counties of the west and northwest of Ireland. This storm has been named Eva, as there is an orange status wind warning in operation for counties Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal.

Advice for drivers

The RSA is urging motorists and other road users to be mindful of the forecasts and to take extra care. Here’s the advice for drivers:

  • Beware of objects being blown out onto the road. Expect the unexpected. Watch out for falling/fallen debris on the road and vehicles veering across the road. 
  • Control of a vehicle may be affected by strong cross winds. High sided vehicles and motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable to strong winds. 
  • Allow extra space between you and vulnerable road users such as cyclists and motorcyclists. 
  • Drive with dipped headlights at all times. 
  • Monitor radio weather broadcasts while travelling.

Flood warnings

Flood defences are to be installed in Limerick City as a precautionary measure ahead of high tides and expected heavy rainfall in the coming days, the Council has confirmed.

According to the local authority, the flood risk, while described as low at present “is the result of a combination of high tides due twice daily from 24-28 December on the Shannon Estuary and up to Limerick City, with the possible risk of strong winds, low atmospheric pressure and higher than average rainfall for the coming days”.

Meanwhile Clare County Council is urging home and business owners, particularly those in low-lying coastal areas, to take extra precautions.

White Christmas? 

After another mild day, temperatures dropped yesterday evening to between 3 and 6 degrees.

After the stormy conditions today, Christmas Eve will be cold with a mix of sunny spells and blustery showers.

Christmas Day will start off cool, bright and sunny in many areas. However, wet and windy weather will develop in the southwest by around noon, spreading across the country.

Daytime temperatures will be cool on 25 December – as low as 5 degrees: but not cold enough for snow.

St Stephen’s Day will be extremely mild, with highest temperatures of between 11 and 14 degrees.

With reporting from Michelle Hennessy and Rónán Duffy

Read: Wind, rain and more wind: Met Éireann has issued another weather warning>

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47 Comments
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    Mute KM TON
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    Dec 1st 2016, 1:14 PM

    I feel bad for people losing their jobs but this is the least surprising news ever. The only bit i of a surprise is that it lasted this long.

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    Mute Veroníca
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    Dec 1st 2016, 5:58 PM

    I’m surprised like you that it survived this length of time considering it was utter rubbish anyway

    11
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    Mute Alex Simms
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    Dec 1st 2016, 2:16 PM

    And so concludes the worst idea in Irish television history…

    152
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    Mute Neal, not Neil.
    Favourite Neal, not Neil.
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    Dec 1st 2016, 5:34 PM

    You forgot about Channel 6.

    17
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    Mute Dave O'Hanlon
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    Dec 1st 2016, 6:28 PM

    Channel 6 was actually a decent idea, a channel aimed primarily at a young adult audience. The problem was when it got taken over by TV3 and turned into 3e. They could easily have kept it the way it was but no instead of looking at Michelle Doherty showing decent music videos there was yet more Ant & Dec with X factor loonies

    32
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    Mute Irish Cottage Rental
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    Dec 1st 2016, 1:33 PM

    One island two UTV’s
    A endless farce.

    139
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    Mute Carm(Orange Vampire)
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    Dec 1st 2016, 2:33 PM

    Does this mean that the real ITV/Ulster TV will be available to Irish viewers again?

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    Mute David Walsh
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    Dec 1st 2016, 2:51 PM

    @Carm(Orange Vampire): There’s no legal obligation on TV carriers in Ireland to carry any of the ITV franchises so it’s probably not going to happen. In any case the ITV shows licenced to the TV3 group would be liable to geo locking; that would make it as good as a non option to carry UTV/ITV here so all you’d get is Julian or Good Evening Ulster. Certainly Virgin Media would have no incentive to carry it, they being its opposition.

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    Mute Seán J. Troy
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    Dec 1st 2016, 4:23 PM

    @David Walsh: Didn’t the EU just pass a bill that ends geoblocking within the EU?

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    Mute John Flood
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    Dec 1st 2016, 4:26 PM

    Julian on camera is no longer on the air. He does prerecorded voice overs controlled by ITV HQ. Changed a couple of weeks ago.

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    Mute Screaming Toddy
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    Dec 1st 2016, 4:56 PM

    UTV will never be on Virgin again. Why would Virgin have a competitor showing the same rubbish stuff on their rubbish channels

    14
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    Mute David Walsh
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    Dec 1st 2016, 11:45 PM

    @Seán J. Troy:

    1) It is only a draft resolution and not a law as of yet
    2) It excludes copyright protected services; this included media and broadcasting.
    3) UK will soon be outside of the EU and not regulated by EU laws.

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    Mute Gavin Redmond
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    Dec 1st 2016, 1:21 PM

    Created to fail. Somethings just don’t work.

    79
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    Mute Owen Hennelly
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    Dec 1st 2016, 1:45 PM

    So will it stay on as a third TV3 channel or be wound up altogether? If it’s wound up will we be getting UTV NI back in its place?

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    Mute Paul Furey
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    Dec 1st 2016, 3:58 PM

    UTVNITV3

    27
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    Mute Seán J. Troy
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    Dec 1st 2016, 4:23 PM

    @Paul Furey: I heard of that one, it’s a an African rebel group.

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    Mute Neal, not Neil.
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    Dec 1st 2016, 5:29 PM

    @,Seán the geoblocking thing was more about making sure that your can access your Irish Netflix or Sky on demand content while temporarily visiting another EU country

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    Mute Larry Doyle
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    Dec 1st 2016, 1:54 PM

    Great – even more Jeremy Kyle repeats!

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    Mute Tom Harpur
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    Dec 1st 2016, 2:54 PM

    A few years back TV3 had plans to start 3 classics 3 kids 3 sports and TV3+1 and a Sony HD Studio they commenced the Studios but scrapped the extra channels so maybe now they’ll rebrand UTV to 3 Classics or 3 sports.

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    Mute Neal, not Neil.
    Favourite Neal, not Neil.
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    Dec 1st 2016, 5:31 PM

    It would be very interesting to see what a TV3 “cassic” is. Perhaps a selection of Vincent Brown’s crankiest episodes?

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    Mute John Flanagan
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    Dec 1st 2016, 3:33 PM

    UTV Ireland didn’t serve the deaf & hard of hearing community well because when it was first launched, there were no subtitles to be had at the time. Glad to see this god-awful channel go because of endless repeats as well!

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    Mute Screaming Toddy
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    Dec 1st 2016, 4:57 PM

    What?

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    Mute Scot Tanner Buchholz
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    Dec 1st 2016, 11:38 PM

    That is not the fault of the TV station rather a fault in Ireland not having ‘CC’ services like they have in Canada and the U.S.A. CC = closed captioning. The technology is out there. Ireland just lags behind in using it.

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    Mute Mick Mccomiskey
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    Dec 1st 2016, 2:53 PM

    This is very disappointing. Now I won’t be able to use utv Ireland player. It had most of the stuff available on itv.

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    Mute Neal, not Neil.
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    Dec 1st 2016, 5:33 PM

    TV3 own a lot of those programmes rights for the next ten years as part of the deal so they’ll put them somewhere.

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    Mute Mike Galvin
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    Dec 1st 2016, 6:14 PM

    All I say is I wish TV3 the best of luck with the 3 channels, whatever we might say. I only wish they would upgrade their picture quality on saorview especially for large screen tvs, the same applies to TG4.

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    Mute John Flood
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    Dec 1st 2016, 4:28 PM

    If you want UTV, get FREEVIEW Ireland via satellite. Best thing going. Pay for set up or DIY and NO fees afterward.

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    Mute Shane Kinsella
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    Dec 1st 2016, 4:44 PM

    You’re getting mixed up with FREESAT. Freevirw is the terrestrial TV service. Both of which are miles better than saorview.

    12
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    Mute John Flood
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    Dec 1st 2016, 4:47 PM

    both Saorview and Freeview into a single Digital Terrestrial Receiver allowing you to receive all the Free UK & Irish Digital TV Channels on a single box.

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    Mute Dónal O'Flynn
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    Dec 1st 2016, 8:32 PM

    @John Flood: you’re still missing Shane’s point. You can’t get “Freeview” here that’s only available within the bounds of the UK. What we can get is “Freesat”. The only reason we have it at all is that the satellites have to cover all of the UK and can’t do that without also covering Ireland.

    Also available for the few percent of Irish homes that can’t get “Saorview” is “Saorsat” with RTÉ 1, RTÉ 2 and TG4 only, no purely commercial telly.

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    Mute John Flood
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    Dec 1st 2016, 8:41 PM

    I just cut n pasted text from my owners manual. Apparently not all of Ireland can receive the FTA channels of the satellite. I’m in Wicklow, my friend in Cork can’t get same.

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    Mute David Walsh
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    Dec 1st 2016, 11:49 PM

    @Dónal O’Flynn: there are plans on the cards to make most of the Freeview channels available to Saorview customers.

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    Mute Ciarán Masterson
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    Dec 2nd 2016, 1:27 AM
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    Mute Paddy Flynn
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    Dec 1st 2016, 3:08 PM

    TV3 2? I don’t think so.

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    Mute Tiarnan Guinée
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    Dec 1st 2016, 3:49 PM

    @Paddy Flynn: 3ee more like

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    Mute Scot Tanner Buchholz
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    Dec 1st 2016, 11:33 PM

    This is a sad day for freedom of the press, steps towards democracy and the people who will loose their jobs. Ireland is large enough to support Three tv stations. Rte should loose RTE2 and save tax payers money. #SadDay #UTVIreland

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    Mute von
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    Dec 1st 2016, 7:51 PM

    From TV 3 Ah well we can get rid of all the people who kept us alive for months but now we have Emmerdale and Corrie dory guys we don’t meed you. Bye bye.
    And the fat cats get fatter.

    3
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    Mute Buster VL
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    Dec 1st 2016, 8:24 PM

    Aaa Wally free zone.

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