Beware! Gertrude's coming! What does it mean for us?

The Met Office and Met Eireann have named the next area of deep low pressure, or 'storm' GERTRUDE. Below is the Weather chart for Midday Friday. Notice how closely spaced the isobars are. This indicates gale to storm force winds. The Calendar region will not see the strongest winds; these will be further north over Scotland and Northern Ireland but we still need to take care.

Southwesterly winds will increase Thursday night into Friday to become Gale force with gusts expected to 70mph. This will make for difficult driving conditions especially in high-sided vehicles and especially on north-south routes such as the M1, A1(M) and the A19.Spells of heavy rain are expected too, especially persistent in Pennine areas where the Met Office have issued a heavy rain warning. This will have an impact over the weekend on the Yorkshire river systems.

The strong to gale force winds are expected to continue into Saturday and they will turn bitterly cold as well. So if heading for the hills Saturday wrap up well.The latest Met Office Warnings can be found here.