Storm Ciaran: How Premier League games and travelling fans will be affected

As news of Storm Ciaran swept across the continent, the powers that be behind the Dutch national headwind cycling championships threw together plans for an eighth edition. It was just as quickly called off. The wind was too strong.

Hot on the heels of Storm Babet, the latest bout of extreme weather wreaked havoc across English shores on Thursday and Friday, with torrential rain and winds in excess of 100mph prompting the closure of hundreds of schools and major power outages.

Here’s how Storm Ciaran will affect the full slate of Premier League fixtures scheduled across the coming weekend and whether England’s top flight may suffer the same fate as the blustering Dutch bike riders.

The south of England is the most at-risk region of the country for a storm that has swept across from Europe. A yellow rain warning was issued by the Met Office from Saturday 3pm to midnight in East Sussex, Hampshire and Isle of Wight, Kent and West Sussex.

Brighton are the only Premier League club located in any of those counties. The Seagulls travel out of their windswept home to face Everton at Goodison Park on Saturday but they may well return to more pleasant conditions on the south coast.

Chief Forecaster with the Met Office Frank Saunders – effectively the meteorologist’s meteorologist – was optimistic that the worst damage had already been done.

“After the events of this week, the forecast is moving into a period of fairly typical autumnal weather, with breezy conditions and spells of rain and showers, interspersed with some clearer and brighter periods,” Saunders explained.

“We still have warnings in the forecast, partly because the ground is already so wet but overall conditions are expected to be less impactful than we’ve seen over the last few days.

“Aside from scattered showers in the north and west of the UK, Bonfire Night [Sunday] will be largely dry and settled, although temperatures will be dipping compared with values last week.”

However, 39 flood warnings – where flooding is expected – have been issued alongside 152 flood alerts – where the rise in water is possible.

Southern Railway advised people to work from home if possible on Thursday and Friday but, despite flooding concerns, delays have (relatively) eased over the weekend. LNER even recommended that travellers wait until Saturday to skip around the country.

However, that’s not to say that navigation for travelling Premier League fans – particularly those embarking from the south of England, such as supporters from Brighton and Bournemouth heading to Everton and Manchester City respectively – will be plain-sailing. When is it ever on UK trains?

The wet ground and warm autumn ensure that falling trees are a considerable risk. If leaves on the track can disrupt a train service, then an entire oak on the line will cause chaos.

Liverpool travelled into the heart of the downpour just as Storm Ciaran made it across the Channel with a Carabao Cup tie away to Bournemouth on Wednesday night. The Reds emerged from the contest with a 2-1 win but had their flight back to Merseyside cancelled due to the adverse conditions.

Jurgen Klopp’s team instead made the 265-mile trip to Merseyside by coach. The Reds are back south for a Premier League meeting with Luton Town on Sunday afternoon. It remains to be seen whether the winds will allow a flight this weekend.

When Storm Ciara buffeted British shores at the start of 2020, it forced the postponement of Manchester City vs West Ham United in the men’s top flight and all six WSL matches on Sunday, 9 February 2020.

Everton’s general manager Aaron Little explained the process of debating the postponement of a match to The Athletic at the time. “We do site walk-rounds roughly every 40 minutes or so and between 8am and 8.30am it was fine, then 8.30am until 9am it was absolutely horrendous.

“Then arises the question of how late do you leave it? Do we get to a point at 12.30pm where it’s great, or we get to a point where it’s, ‘No, we need to make a decision?’”

The state of the art drainage systems installed across the Premier League ensure that a waterlogged pitch is almost never going to force any club to postpone a match. Disruption to travel, which will be dictated by Saturday’s rainfall, is more often the deciding factor.

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