Storm Eowyn LIVE: Heathrow flights cancelled as 114mph hurricane winds bring ‘extreme and real’ risk to life

One flood warning and 34 flood alerts are in place across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Rising river levels in the Middle Hampshire Avon at Britford, Salisbury, means flooding is expected this morning.

Residents have been urged to start acting on their flood plan; to avoid using low lying floodpaths and any bridges near local watercourses.

The flood warning reads: “We are monitoring rainfall and river levels and liaising with emergency services and local authorities.

“Stay away from floodwater – it contains hidden dangers such as open manhole covers, sewage and chemicals.

“Don’t put yourself or others at risk.”

While London and the South-East has escaped the rare red warning issued by the Met Office, Storm Eowyn is still having a significant impact on travel in the region – with airlines having to cancel dozens of flights.

Commuters are battling the wind and rain as they make their way to work in central London on Friday morning.

According to the Met Office, people are facing gusts of up to 38mph currently in London.

These images show people as they cross Westminster Bridge this morning.

There are no reports of the stormy weather affecting transport within the capital, although longer distance travel is being affected to the north of England.

However separate issues have hit commuters in the capital.

A track circuit failure at London Waterloo is causing disruption to journeys to and from the station. As a result, trains may be cancelled, delayed by up to 60 minutes or revised.

Meanwhile trains are returning to normal following a fault with the signalling system between Three Bridges and Haywards Heath. As service recovers, trains running between Gatwick Airport and Haywards Heath may still be cancelled, delayed by up to 20 minutes or revised.

There are 715,000 homes, farms and businesses without power across the Republic of Ireland.

The Irish Electricity Supply Board (ESB) said there had been “unprecedented, widespread and extensive” damage to electricity infrastructure nationwide.

ESB said it would take a “significant number of days” to restore power to all affected customers.

The threat to people’s safety from the high winds means that hundreds of schools have been closed across the UK:

Northern Ireland: All schools have been closed.

Scotland: All schools are closed in Glasgow and Edinburgh. More than 120 schools are closed in Aberdeenshire.

In the Highlands, six secondary schools, 20 primary schools and 17 nurseries are closed, the BBC reported. All schools and nurseries are closed in Argyll and Bute, as well as in the Scottish Borders.

England: 30 schools are closed in Northumberland , and seven in Cumberland.

Wales : Elfed High School in Flintshire is closed. More than 30 schools in Anglesey, external and two in Gwynedd, say they will stay closed on Friday.

An analysis of flight tracking website FlightRadar24 shows at least 334 flights have been cancelled across airports in Aberdeen, Belfast, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

This means around 50,000 passengers have been affected.

The number of cancellations for each airport, according to the PA news agency, is:– Belfast International: 16 departures and 16 arrivals– Belfast City: 23 departures and 20 arrivals– Edinburgh: 74 departures and 72 arrivals– Glasgow: 40 departures and 41 arrivals– Aberdeen: 25 departures and 25 arrivals.

This breakdown includes 18 domestic flights that were scheduled to depart from one of the airports and arrive at another.

Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill has warned there is a “genuine threat to life and property”, describing the region as currently being “in the eye of the storm”.

The top-level red warning for wind covering Northern Ireland came into force at 7am.

Ms O’Neill has urged people to stay at home.

“We’re asking the public to be very safe, to be very cautious, to take every precaution to ensure that they don’t take any unnecessary travel, please just stay at home if you can,” she told BBC Radio Ulster.

“We’re in the eye of the storm now. We are in the period of the red alert.

“People can see for themselves, the wind has been very much picking up overnight. We’ve just been briefed by the Civil Contingencies Group, by the PSNI who are in the lead in terms of the storm response and they tell us that the situation is, as we have outlined yesterday, we’re still in a period of jeopardy in terms of the damage that potentially could be caused as a result of the storm.

“I think the real message we want to get across to your listeners this morning is to please be ultra cautious, to please stay at home if you can and we will see how the storm will rage but the scale of the storm, the level of wind that we’ve experienced across the island, which is something that’s never been seen before. The threat is real, and we only can emphasise to people, please take every precaution that you absolutely can.”

While Northern Ireland, Scotland and the North of England will get the full brunt of Storm Eowyn, a yellow warning for wind covering London came into force at 5am and will last until until 3pm.

Some delays to road, rail, air and ferry transport are likely, the Met Office predicts.

It warns probably some bus and train services will be affected, with some journeys taking longer.

The Met Office is expecting the impact of Storm Eowyn to be widespread across the UK and has issued a series of warnings in place for most of today:

The first of the two rare red weather ‘danger to life’ warnings for wind in place in the UK have already come into force.

Here is a roundup of the weather warnings compiled by the BBC.

A number of train operators have issued “do not travel” warnings over safety fears around Storm Eowyn.

ScotRail has suspended all services across Scotland today, saying it “would not be safe to operate passenger services due to forecast weather conditions”.

Avanti West Coast, Lumo, CrossCountry and Grand Central have also told customers not to travel on routes across parts of north Wales, Scotland and northern England.

National Rail said the storm will also affect LNER, London Northwestern Railway/West Midlands Railway, Northern, South Western Railway, Southern, TransPennine Express and some Transport for Wales routes.