Heavy rain and wind set to sweep the country on election day

Election day is likely to be very wet and windy as Storm Ciara heads towards the country.

The Atlantic storm, the third of the season, will make landfall along the west coast during Sunday, but it will be preceded by very bad weather on Friday and Saturday.

Met Éireann head of forecasting Evelyn Cusack says they are monitoring the progress of the storm which has been named by the UK Met Office.

She said heavy rain and wind will be at its strongest during the morning and afternoon of polling day.

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She anticipates Met Éireann will issue a yellow or orange weather warning for Sunday closer to the time.

She states that the strong winds will coincide with very high spring tides and there is a possibility of coastal flooding along the Atlantic seaboard from Donegal to Cork.

“We expect gale force eight (62-74 km/h) to storm force 10 (89-102 km/h) at sea on Sunday,” she said.

Wednesday and Thursday will likely be the calm before the storm with high pressure dominating, but this will give way to rain on Friday night and temperatures dropping to freezing.

Conditions will deteriorate over the weekend with heavy rain and strong and gusty southerly winds which will move across the country on Saturday.

Gales can be expected during Saturday evening and into Saturday night and winds will be strongest along the northwest coast.

A yellow weather warning has been issued for the whole of the UK including Northern Ireland for Sunday with gusts of up to 120 km/h expected in coastal areas. Forecaster Alex Deakin warned of "high and damaging wind" and that Ciara could be a "nasty storm".

He expects some structural damage, coastal flooding and travel disruption over the weekend.