Travellers face disruptions as Storm Ciara brings heavy rain and gales

The Met Office has said that Storm Ciara threatens to be the worst of the century, with heavy rain and winds reaching almost 100mph.

Weather warnings have been issued across the country and rail companies, including Network Rail, have urged passengers not to travel.

Meanwhile Cheshire East Highways tweeted "We are still experiencing strong winds across the Cheshire East area and are responding to a high number of reports of fallen trees and other weather related emergencies. Please be aware and take extra care if travelling on the roads today."

Andrew Backhouse has sent us this photo of a tree down across the Manchester bound track at Handforth, taken at 1pm, causing delays as trains are diverted tot the other track.

Kelvin Briggs sent us the photo of Wilmslow Road in Alderley Edge.

Donald Henderson sent the photo of a tree down blocking Congleton Road Nether Alderley this morning, taken around 10am.

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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Marcia McGrail
Monday 10th February 2020 at 11:21 am
More and more trees will be downed by not so excessive winds due to the fact that they have been allowed to become overly weakened. The strain on a tree's superstructure by rampant mistletoe, ivy etc inevitably leads to their demise.
In days gone by, families/villages/estates had the responsibilty of sections of woodland and managed them appropriately, emeliorating the damage.
Sadly, this no longer happens yet we can't afford to lose trees at this rate.
Vince Chadwick
Monday 10th February 2020 at 1:54 pm
My late farther in law was a civil engineer with British Rail. Back in the day one of his responsibilities was to ensure that any unhealthy trees in danger of falling onto the railway were felled before that happened.

The tree in the photograph above appears to be on railway land (it is on the railway side of the palisade fence), so it would seem that Network Rail (a public sector organisation, like BR) are not as pro-active as their predecessors in managing the line side. Further evidence of this is the excessive amount of line side vegetation that has been allowed to establish itself in recent years. This not only results in more incidents such as this, but contributes greatly to the adhesion problems caused by 'leaves on the line' in autumn. It also means our trains run through 'green tunnels', greatly obscuring the view for passengers.