Risk of travel disruption as US 'bomb cyclone' brings wet and windy weather to UK

The deadly bomb cyclone that has sent temperatures plunging in the US is also causing the UK to experience wet and windy weather, the Met Office has said, as warnings are issued about the risk of travel disruption.

On Wednesday, the forecaster issued a yellow weather warning for heavy rain from 3am on Friday for 15 hours for much of Scotland, including Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling.

The Met Office said heavy rain could bring some flooding and travel disruption, though the impact will be nowhere near as significant as experienced in the US, where dozens of people have died amid a devastating winter storm.

A Met Office alert said that the 40-50mm of rain is expected quite widely and warned that fast flowing or deep floodwater is likely to cause danger to life.

A yellow warning of snow and ice also covers northern Scotland, apart from Orkney and Shetland, from midnight on Thursday until 9pm on Friday.

Meteorologist Simon Partridge said the UK is likely to be hit with wet and windy weather, with the cyclone having an effect on the UK due to its impact on the North Atlantic jet stream.

“The UK weather is going to remain unsettled with further spells of wet and windy weather due to the strengthening of the jet stream because of the weather in the US,” he said.

“The effect it’s having on the UK is nowhere near as dramatic because that system has brought up a lot of cold air further south, across the US."

“What effect (the bomb cyclone) has had is to strengthen the jet stream because the jet stream is basically driven by temperature differences.

“So the starker the difference in temperature between the northern edge of it and southern edge, the stronger the jet stream becomes.”

He said the knock-on effect for the UK is spells of wet and windy weather over the next seven to 10 days.

“So the knock-on effect is that, like today, we had a spell of wet, windy weather – and there will be further spells of wet and windy weather,” he said.

Thursday is forecast to be colder than Wednesday, with sunshine and some heavy showers in northern Scotland and western England, as well as a risk of hail and thunder.

Mr Partridge said that Thursday will be a “cooler feeling day” but “still rather windy and with showers” across the UK, while Friday to Sunday is forecast to be unsettled, with snow over the Highlands, showers and rain in southern England, and frosts and fog overnight.

He added: “And then on Friday we’ll see another spell of wet, windy weather with milder temperatures and then similar sorts of patterns to that over the next few days.

“So the general sort of knock-on effect of the weather in the US is that in general the UK is going to be a little bit milder than it would normally be at this time of year.”

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