The Met Office has issued an amber weather warning in south-western parts of the UK with winds as strong as 70mph possible due to the first named storm of the season.
The first storm of the autumn has been named as Storm Austen, with the warning coming into force from 3am until 10am on Friday for Cornwall and parts of Devon.
An amber weather warning for wind has been issued across Cornwall and Devon, with the Met Office issuing a risk to life from large waves and strong gales.
Actor Noel Clarke in court over sexual offence allegations
Actor Noel Clarke is expected to appear in court today charged with sexual offences against five women.
What has he been accused of?
Clarke, who has appeared in and is accused of two counts of sexual assault, three of voyeurism and one of exposure between 2007 and 2016.
The offences are alleged to have taken place in London and Dorset. Clarke has previously denied any allegations of inappropriate behaviour or sexual misconduct.
What do police say?
Bethan David, deputy chief Crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring this case to court and that it is in the public interest to do so.”
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Drinking tea may be good for your heart
Tea drinking is good for your heart, and drinking it regularly reduces the risk of vascular disease by 11 per cent, research has found.
What did the study find?
A study in China published in the Journal of Internal Medicine looked at the risk of vascular disease in 485,934 people.
- Those who drank about six to eight cups per day were found to be at the lowest risk of vascular disease among weekly tea drinkers.
- Vascular disease can include heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, pulmonary heart disease and peripheral artery disease.
- Tea consumption combined with not smoking and exercising was associated with the lowest risk.
The expert view
This doesn’t prove that a daily cuppa protects your heart. This was an observational study and other differences in people’s diets and lifestyles could help explain the findings… We need further evidence before assuming the findings apply in the same way to people in the UK.
Dell Stanford, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation
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Judi Dench: Cats film was a waste of talent
Actor Dame Judi Dench has described the 2019 film , the adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, as a “waste” of “goodwill and talent”.
She starred as the wise moggy Old Deuteronomy and has so far declined to watch the movie.
What she said
Oh God, I can’t bear it, and [Lloyd Webber] had waited so long for it to be made. What a waste of all that goodwill and talent. I understand the critics were rather hostile to the film. I never saw the final cut so I can’t judge. All I’ll say is nobody sets out to give a poor performance or make a bad film. You do your best… and hope that people will get on board and join the party.
Details revealed in new memoir
In her forthcoming memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?, Dench said she felt “ill at ease from the beginning – I just didn’t feel right in the role”, reports.
She said young dancers were ignored at the end of each take. However, she said she enjoyed meeting co-star Taylor Swift and receiving 50 everlasting roses, spraypainted gold, from Jason Derulo, another co-star.
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Why was the film panned?
The director, Tom Hooper, has been criticised for how he adapted the musical, including error-prone use of CGI. He has not made a film since.
Lloyd Webber has said “the whole thing was ridiculous”, “off-the-scale wrong” and that it caused him to become a dog owner.
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Two UK cities develop joint investment plan – what it means
Cambridge and Manchester are developing a plan to pitch themselves as one location for foreign direct investment, built around the two cities’ strengths.
How will it work?
The two cities will create a joint investment case in order to help companies based there to raise capital from abroad. The aim will be to boost local growth in both areas.
Local politicians, industry leaders and universities have backed the scheme which they say will be crucial in building “global impact” and “creating opportunities” in these cities.
Innovation and industry
“Cambridge is the second most innovation-intensive in the world and our collective aim is to use this incredible region of innovators and citizens to drive local and national growth. Our partnership with Manchester will be crucial in unlocking the potential of our economy and our local growth “
Paul Bristow, mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority
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How multiple social activities can keep the mind sharp
A new study has shown that participating in a wide range of activities with other people keeps the brain active in old age.
What did the study show?
Researchers found people aged between 57 and 73 scored better on a cognitive performance test if they engaged in at least three social activities over six years.
The study tested 57,793 people from across the world including England, the US, Mexico and China. They found the effects of multiple social activities were most pronounced in women, those over 60 and those with higher levels of education.
Which activities are best?
- Volunteering and joining a sports club lowered the risk of decline.
- Training courses and looking after children improved cognitive scores.
- Political, church or religious groups did not have a consistent effect.
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Everything we know about Liz Truss’s new book
Former prime minister Liz Truss will release a book next week to offer an “explosive insider account” of her 2022 mini-Budget, which plunged the British economy into chaos.
What will the book cover?
Truss, who served as prime minister for just 44 days, will be releasing her book next Monday, just two days ahead of John Healey’s Budget on Wednesday. Truss resigned four years ago today, three weeks after the mini budget which sent the bond markets into turmoil.
According to the blurb, in the book Truss “revisits the extraordinary events of 2022 from inside Downing Street, challenging the establishment narrative surrounding the mini-budget”.
Book reveals ‘struggle about who really controls Britain’
Truss exposes the immense influence wielded by unelected institutions, from the Bank of England and the Treasury to the Office for Budget Responsibility, and reveals how the forces which brought down her government went far beyond economics.
promotional material from bank job
Further parts of England and South Wales are under a yellow weather warning, with damage to buildings and transport networks probable, along with the possibility of power cuts.
Storm Austen is expected to move away by Friday evening, but the wet weather will continue into Saturday.
Following a record-breaking dry summer, the Met Office has predicted higher chances of strong winds and heavy rainfall for the rest of autumn and winter.
This is partly due to the , a periodic warming in ocean temperatures in the Pacific that affects weather patterns across the globe.
As we move into the peak season for named storms, the Government has launched a taskforce to prepare the UK for the potentially tumultuous weather ahead.
This week’s forecast
Rainy weather is continuing to push across Scotland, moving eastwards across England and Wales. It will be windy across the country, with a risk of coastal gales.
Unsettled and rainy conditions will continue throughout the rest of the week with showers and longer spells of rain affecting much of the UK, and the chance of gales and heavy rainfall from Thursday.
An amber and yellow severe weather warning for wind has been issued for in south-west Wales and England on Friday between midnight and 12pm, with the possibility of winds up to 70mph in exposed coastal locations.
Met Office deputy chief forecaster, Tom Crabtree, said: “An area of the forecast we’re particularly focusing on is the development of a potentially deep area of low pressure that could cross the UK overnight on Thursday and through Friday.
“It has the potential to bring some strong winds, though the location of the strongest winds will be determined by the low position. At this stage, people should keep an eye on the forecast and be prepared for some unsettled weather at the end of the week.”
When will we see our next named storm?
Named storms in the UK are usually seen in late autumn, with the first named storm arriving after 1 November in about half of the years since 2015. arrived in early October last year, bringing heavy rain and gales across the country, and leaving tens of thousands of homes without power.
As temperatures around polar regions starts to fall, the contrast with the warmer tropics can produce a more potent jet stream – the narrow band of fast winds high in the atmosphere. This can then increase the chances of a named storm.
Up until Austen, the deep Atlantic low pressure responsible for more turbulent conditions had been kept at bay by dominant areas of high pressure.
With this week’s weather conditions escalating, the Met Office officially named the first storm of the season – Austen.
The UK’s last named storm, Dave, in early April, was the most severe April windstorm since storm naming was introduced in autumn 2015, bringing winds as strong as 93mph in some areas.
Storm names for 2026-27
The list of storm names start from A and continue alphabetically, with each cycle running from early September to late August.
Here are the names for the next cycle as set by the Met Office, Irenland’s Met Éireann and Dutch forecaster KNMI. Not all are used every year:
Austen, Boelo, Chloe, Dano, Evelyn, Finn, Gwendolyn, Heather, Ivy, Jade, Kilian, Laoise, Miriam, Nicola, Olaf, Phelim, Ruban, Shaun, Theo, Vesna, Wendy
Names starting with Q, U, X, Y and Z are not included, keeping in line with the US National Hurricane Centre’s naming convention.
The Impact of
Forecasters have warned that this year’s El Niño could affect the likelihood of stormy conditions across the UK. The Met Office has predicted this year’s event to be the strongest “in living memory”.
The Met Office currently forecasts double the normal chance of wetter weather and 1.3 times the normal chance of windier weather in October, November and December.
“El Niño typically increases the likelihood of wetter and stormier conditions in the UK during late autumn and early winter, though its precise influence on this year’s weather will become clearer as forecasts evolve,” the agency said.
UK preparing for flooding
The increased threat of stormy conditions has prompted the Government to launch a new taskforce for , with an initial focus on preparing the nation for this .
More than six million homes and businesses are at risk of flooding in England, according to the Environment Agency (EA), with more than 218,000 homes at a high risk of flooding from rivers and seas, and 827,000 at risk of surface water flooding.
The taskforce, named the Flood and Drought Resilience Taskforce, is led by floods and drought minister Emma Hardy with representatives from over 50 organisations, including the EA, Met Office, Fire and Rescue Services, and farming and water industries.
A target has been set to provide 200,000 properties with better flood protection up to 2028-29 via a range of measures, including flood defences and natural methods like rain gardens.
Hardy said: “This Government has ambitious targets and historic investment to support the country against severe weather. Our new Flood and Drought Resilience Taskforce will put communities and businesses at the heart of our defence plans, while our £4.2bn investment in new and existing flood defences will protect even more people over the coming years.”
The increased threat from extreme weather is fast becoming a reality across Europe. On Monday, Spanish authorities said four people were killed in severe floods triggered by torrential rainfall across the weekend. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate.
The downpour from Storm Adam, Spain’s first named storm of the season, which started on Saturday, saw as much as 700 litres of rain (185 gallons) per square metre pour down over 24 hours in some areas of the València region. In the same area, catastrophic flooding killed more than 230 people two years ago.
Floodwaters have since isolated several towns along the Mediterranean coast, while rivers have burst their banks and streets have turned into torrents.
The storm is confirmed to have killed four people – two in the coastal resort of Oliva, a third at a beach in Sagunto, and a fourth who fell into a swollen stream in Catalonia.