It's more complicated here in the UK, in that not all ambers are alike - there are four options:

Medium impact, high chance of happening

Medium impact, very high chance of happening

High impact, medium chance of happening

High impact, high chance of happening

The latter is on the "red path", as I call it, and red is:

High impact, very high chance of happening

The "chance of happening" tends to tick up as we get closer to the event.

The other clue is in the wording of the warning, which tends to be more severe in the "high impact" or "red path" - e.g. an amber on the "red path" will say:

Widespread structural damage e.g. roofs blown off, mobile homes overturned, power lines brought down.

Whereas an amber on the "medium impact" path would say:

Some structural damage, such as slates dislodged from roofs.

I suspect Ireland has a simpler system.

Thanks. I think Ireland's system is over enthusiastic. I've seen too many 'red warnings' issued for my region that bascially amounted to nothing, and I suspect this will be the case this time around as well. Some breif high winds around the coasts and nearer higher ground (neither of which I am near) but that's about it. 

I wouldn't be so sure on that one - even if you take 20mph off the Met Office values for Galway, for example, you still have 74mph - and that's pretty gnarly, so to speak. I don't know how far inland you are, but even so - it's going to be very windy.

Those pinks as seen on Meteociel are darned rare. They have popped up from time to time here, but even then it tends to be one or two runs and they change. This time around, for Ireland especially, the models have been rock-solid over the past few runs. It's not, I'd wager, the normal run-of-the-mill stuff.

We'll see soon enough anyway, stay safe!

The MetO now has 57 gusts (compared to 40-50 in the warning, hmm) and GFS has 61. GFS has been persistently forecasting winds around 60mph for the past couple of days, while the MetO gradually crept up and up, day by day... That would make it 4:4 to the GFS and MetO over this extended winter half of the year.

(And my experience is that we're normally within a few mph of the MetO forecast - if it says 57 I would expect the low 50s, perhaps the odd  rogue gust into the low 60s, and they're the ones that cause the problems).

Strongest gusts possibly 70mph on coasts for the south early Friday am.

I agree that Meteireann is a bit trigger happy on warnings. I hope you're right about the storm not being so bad but the problem is that we just can't be sure yet. The head of the National Emergency Coordination Group(I didn't know that we had one of those)is on the RTE website saying that this will be one of the severest storms ever. If you're right, it's going to take credibility out of future warnings.

It's looking nasty.   😞 

Could well see the largest (in area) Red level warnings since the system started given the significant areas impacted.

I think these words need to be held onto. If this storm is going to be more severe that the literal Cat 1 speeds that leveled the entire west of Ireland in 1961, or the near hurricane force winds of 1974 and mulitple times during the 90s, then we are in for some serious weather! 

https://images.meteociel.fr/im/100/11494/ukmohd_uk1_11_40_0qkj9.png 

TWO's view - which will change when the charts update - has a scarcely believable 140mph shown to the immediate west of Ireland. That's just over 220km/h, which matches the "off the scale" pink on the MC chart.

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/charts/ukguk/12_41_wind_gust.png 

....and then there's this little feature a few days later. 10mph in Tonbridge, 110mph 25 miles away over the Channel! 😳

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/charts/ukguk/12_117_wind_gust.png 

Assuming the track and intensity continues to be modelled, and taking into account the last storm and its specifics that went red here, you’d have to say it’s fairly likely 

https://www.rte.ie/news/weather/2025/0122/1492183-storm-eowyn/ 

If more people lose power than when we had Ophelia, it's going to be pretty bad.

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/charts/ukv/15_38_gust_wind.png 

Talking of the MetO, I wouldn't usually do this but as it's shaping up to be a noteworthy event - here's the MetO raw wind gust chart for Friday morning. The sheer extent of 80+ gusts is remarkable.

https://ukwct.org.uk/weather/meto.jpg 

On Meteocil the scale to the west of Ireland actually doesn’t even go that high. Does anyone know if there are heigh tides forecast. Surely a storm surge is a real possibility?

https://meteologix.com/uk/model-charts/standard/galway/m13_wind-streamlines/20250124-0300z.html 

200km/h or 124mph sustained winds to SW Ireland.

Or 223kph gusts.

https://meteologix.com/uk/model-charts/standard/galway/m13_wind-streamlines/20250124-0300z.html 

kph?

Yep my bad, its 138mph; I've edited.

Oh and there are also extreme blizzards under -12C uppers.

https://modeles16.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2025012212/gens-13-0-42.png 

There will probably be 5 or 6 warnings ontop of each other e.g. Yellow wind, amber wind, red wind, yellow rain, amber rain, yellow snow. I prefer the old metoffice warning graphics; was a bit less confusing.

Just remember not to eat it! 😜

But seriously, I hope that Lionel and Chunky stay safe, it's looking pretty bad for you guys.

https://www.estofex.org/cgi-bin/polygon/showforecast.cgi?text=yes