UPdate: RTE reports that almost 50,000 homes and businesses without power, it’s understood that many trees have fallen on the west Coast.
The whole country is now under a status orange wind warning with “violent” winds expected.
Met Éireann is warning of damaging gusts of up to 130 km/h as well as a significant flood risk.
The storm, which originated off the coast of Canada has struck the west of the country from Kerry to Donegal. It’s now moving across Ireland and set to hit the east coast at lunchtime.
A band of very severe and damaging winds, associated with #StormBrendan is expected to move from west to east across the country between 11am and 3pm today, gusts to 130km/h expected with potentially higher gusts in exposed areas. pic.twitter.com/W9W0AtYDRg
— Met Éireann (@MetEireann) January 13, 2020
According to the ESB, there are 21,000 homes and businesses without power due to the storm.
Around 4,000 people are without electricity in Kerry this morning as the storm hits. Most of the outages so far are in Cahersiveen and south Kerry along with west Kerry.
There are outages along the west coast of the country with Kerry and Cork the worst affected at the moment along with areas in Galway, Mayo and Sligo.
People, it just got serous here in Bantry.
Do not got out in this.#StormBrendan #justnow pic.twitter.com/3nbbb70GWv— Liquid Curiosity (@CuriosityLiquid) January 13, 2020
Trees have come down in north Kerry and the public are being asked to avoid altogether the Killarney National Park.
The early morning Kerry to Dublin flight has been cancelled and a number of scheduled events in Tralee have also been postponed.
While Storm Brendan will pass over the country in a matter of hours, the north-west will experience “a second blast” this afternoon said the head of forecasting at Met Éireann, Evelyn Cusack.
The combination of spring high tides, storm surges because of low pressure, storm force winds and thunderstorms means Storm Brendan will be very powerful.
