Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) announced on 5 December 2024 that it had moved to Yellow Alert status across its central southern England network area ahead of Storm Darragh, and said planned works due to take place over the weekend of 7-8 December would be postponed to free up more teams to respond to faults1.
SSEN said Storm Darragh was forecast to bring a period of sustained high winds to its central southern England network area on the weekend of 7-8 December, with gusts of around 60mph across the region from midday on Saturday, remaining at that strength until late on Saturday evening, and 50mph gusts expected overnight on Saturday and during most of Sunday1. A statement published the following day said winds would increase from around 5am on Saturday, with sustained north-westerly gusts of 60mph from midday to midnight on Saturday and gusts remaining above 40mph throughout Sunday2. The Met Office had issued a number of weather warnings for the period1.
The network operator said additional engineers and tree cutters would be brought in, and that hundreds more team members would be on duty compared with a normal weekend1. It said it would contact its most vulnerable customers, including 750,000 people on its Priority Service Register, ahead of the weekend, and that text messages with guidance were being sent to hundreds of thousands more Priority Service Register customers1.
"Storm Darragh is forecast to be this winter's most unsettled spell of weather so far; it will bring a period of widespread, sustained strong winds throughout the weekend."
SSEN said customers are eligible for its Priority Services Register if they are deaf or hard of hearing, have a disability, live with children under five, are blind or partially sighted, have a chronic illness, use medical equipment or aids reliant on electricity, or are over 60, and that all its priority services are free1. It gave the register's phone number as 0800 294 3259 and the emergency power cut number as 1051. It said customers could track faults and planned interruptions, and find the nearest EV charge point during a power cut, on its Power Track map1.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Alert status | Yellow Alert, central southern England1 |
| Peak gusts | Around 60mph from midday Saturday 7 December1 |
| Overnight and Sunday | 50mph gusts overnight Saturday and most of Sunday1; above 40mph throughout Sunday2 |
| Priority Service Register | 750,000 people contacted1 |
| Planned works | Postponed over the weekend1 |
Why it matters for households
A sustained period of high winds is the condition most likely to bring overhead lines down and interrupt supplies, so a network moving to Yellow Alert is a signal that disruption is considered possible rather than certain. For a household, the practical exposure is the length of any outage: SSEN has committed extra engineers and tree cutters and postponed planned work so that unplanned faults take priority1. Households that depend on electricity for medical equipment, or that include people over 60, young children or anyone with a chronic illness, sit on the Priority Services Register, which SSEN says is free and which it was contacting directly before the winds arrived1. Details of SSEN's networks, storms and priority services set out how that support works, and the wider picture of national supply covers how network operators prepare for and respond to weather-driven interruptions.
What happens next
SSEN said it would continue to monitor the storm as it developed and issue further updates depending on the forecast1. No restoration times or estimates of the number of properties affected had been reported at the time of the alert.