NI weather: Storm Jocelyn causes 'major disruption' to road network

Storm Jocelyn has caused "major disruption" across the road network in Northern Ireland, a Department for Infrastructure official has said.

The main road to Belfast International Airport was closed on Tuesday evening due to the storm but reopened on Wednesday.

A yellow warning for wind ended on Wednesday morning.

"Since yesterday, the beginning of the storm, we have had over 200 additional reported incidents," Colin Sykes said.

The department's director of road maintenance added the impact had not been as widespread as Storm Isha.

However, "coming on the back of the previous storm we still do have a number of obstructions across the road network and I would just ask people to be very careful if they are travelling this morning".

High winds and fallen trees due to Storm Jocelyn resulted in a number of road closures on Tuesday evening, with some train journeys and flights also affected.

Jocelyn followed Storm Isha which blew in on Sunday causing power cuts that are still affecting 1,400 customers.

Power has already been restored to more than 52,000 customers since Sunday evening.

NIE Networks had estimated the number of customers affected by outages would rise again as Jocelyn brought strong winds over Tuesday night and into Wednesday.

The company said it would continue working to restore supplies where it is safe to do so.

Alex Houston of NIE Networks said it had 600 engineers "out in the field" and it would be able to bolster its service on Wednesday with a helicopter and more engineers from Great Britain.

"We are set up to work through to the end of the week, there will be a small number of customers who may be off until Friday, but we are doing everything in our power to bring in those additional resources to try and speed that up," he told BBC News NI's Good Morning Ulster.

He thanked customers for their "patience and resilience" and said work would continue "until the last customer" has power restored.

In the Republic of Ireland, about 19,000 homes and businesses remain without power.

Uisce Éireann said reservoirs had run low due to power outages.

Storm Jocelyn was not expected to be as severe as Storm Isha and the highest gusts in both Northern Ireland and the Republic stood at 71mph.

The Met Office said following the impact of Storm Isha "resilience is expected to be lower", which could hamper ongoing recovery and repair efforts.

There could be further damage to buildings, power cuts, and disruption to transport, it said.

Some flights to and from George Best Belfast City Airport were cancelled on Tuesday.

Just two days after Storm Isha, Storm Jocelyn has brought another stormy night causing disruption with trees down and power outages in places again.

Highest gusts reached 71mph and Castlederg and Orlock Head.

Although the worst has passed there is still a risk of disruption, especially at first on Wednesday morning before the wind gradually moderates.

After that brief lull, the wind will still become a feature at times as head through the tail end of the week but thankfully nothing as strong.

Quite a windy day on Thursday, with rain at times, but mild.

Bright and breezy on Friday and after a colder start, a bit fresher as it will be for the weekend when it will be breezy and often cloudy but mainly dry until Sunday.

Damage to the roof of Titanic Belfast has also caused the visitor attraction to close on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The site's operations director Siobhan Lynch said pre-booked customers will be notified and refunded and has apologised for the inconvenience.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland reported it had 670 call-outs related to Storm Isha between 15:00 on Sunday and 03:00 on Monday.

In County Londonderry, a motorist died after a tree hit his car in Limavady.

Multiple trees, including three of the famous Dark Hedges beeches, were damaged in the storm leaving some roads impassable.

Storm Jocelyn, which has been named by Irish weather service Met Éireann, is the 10th this season.

It was named after County Armagh-born astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

It is the first time there has been a storm beginning with J since Storm Jake in March 2016.