Travel services braced for Storm Bert’s arrival

The main thrust of the storm will hit Scotland and northern England, but the Bailiwick is still expected to be hit by strong winds and bands of heavy rain.

Southerly winds are set to increase to force eight this afternoon, with gusts of up to 50mph. The strong winds will continue overnight and will only start to ease tomorrow afternoon, as the wind swings round to the west.

All Condor’s passenger ferry services today are cancelled. It was hoped the Goodwill freight boat would have made it in early this morning, after leaving Portsmouth early last night.

But it was then expected to ride out the storm in Guernsey and not leave until Sunday.

An extra Islander service from Portsmouth has been scheduled for tomorrow night to help catch up.

The Channel Chieftain V, which battles through the worst weather between Jersey and Guernsey to bring in the national newspapers, is currently the only other vessel expected in at St Peter Port harbour.

At the airport, flights suffered severe disruption on Thursday due to strong winds and icy conditions. A number of flights were cancelled and the last flights did not land until close to 11pm.

But the late night finish meant planes were in position for services yesterday, meaning all the UK red eyes got away close to on time.

Keeping on top the schedule was clearly on the airline’s mind, as the next band of bad weather arrives today. Aurigny has offered anyone travelling today the choice to move to another flight in the next seven days for free.

The airline’s chief commercial officer Sudeep Ghai said it hoped the move would give customers increased certainty about their travel plans.

‘Aurigny plans to operate all our schedules, so long as conditions permit a safe operation for our customers and crew – we thank everyone for their ongoing patience.’

There are yellow weather warnings for rain and some snow for both Saturday and Sunday for much of the UK, including Southampton, Manchester and Bristol, with flights scheduled to all three airports.

Gatwick and Birmingham, which also have flights, are just outside the weather warning areas, but still expect to see heavy rain.

Wind gusts of up to force nine are expected around Gatwick tomorrow.

November has started off unseasonably dry, but the last few days has seen some very heavy rain.

The Met Office recorded 27mm of rain on Thursday – about a fifth of the monthly average.

It means that so far this month there has been 67mm of rain.

n One of the reasons Thursday’s weather was so damaging to St Peter Port was the wind’s easterly direction.

This also brought in very cold air, with the top temperature reaching only 7C on Thursday, and the thermometer dropping to just 2C on Thursday night.

However, this weekend the wind is expected to be from the south and the west and bring in warmer air.

Temperatures are expected to reach 15C today and 16C tomorrow.