Nearly 195,000 farms, homes and businesses are without power across Ireland this morning, Thursday (August 20), the ESB has confirmed.

Operations manager with the ESB Derek Hynes told Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1 that the worst affected counties in terms of power loss are: Cork; Tipperary; Westmeath; Longford; and Limerick.

He added that the ESB can “trace the impact of Storm Ellen in line with the Met Éireann forecast”.

The ESB reportedly prepared for significant power outages. Hynes said staff were on standby to repair faults in all areas.

What we were ready for was a fairly serious weather event to hit the south, and then all sorts of variable routes for it to pass through the country.

A Status Red wind warning had been issued for Co. Cork yesterday. Over 30,000 homes and businesses are reportedly without power in the county.

Cork County Council is advising people to “exercise extreme caution on the roads this morning as high winds / heavy rain overnight has resulted in hazardous road conditions, including fallen trees/debris and areas of spot flooding”.

A Status Yellow wind warning for Leinster, Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal, Leitrim, Roscommon and Sligo is in place until 8:00am this morning. Met Éireann told Morning Ireland that it will be considering issuing new warnings for today.

Met Éireann has forecasted that today will be “very windy, with bright or sunny spells and scattered heavy showers, merging to give longer spells of rain at times, with risk of thundery downpours and localised flooding”.

A week of weather warnings

A Status Yellow wind warning had been issued this week covering the whole island of Ireland ahead of Storm Ellen. The warning for the Republic of Ireland was in effect from last night at 9:00pm.

The warning for Northern Ireland came into effect one hour earlier last night.

Met Éireann said that between 9:00pm and 11:59pm last night, Storm Ellen would “produce a core of very severe and destructive winds”.

A Status Orange wind warning had also been issued for a number of counties: Galway; Mayo; Clare; Kerry; Limerick; and Waterford.