Leeds battered as Storm Eleanor unleashes violent winds

Hundreds of homes were left without power in the city yesterday morning after the severe wind wreaked havoc overnight.

Properties in Leeds, Wakefield, York, Bradford and Halifax were affected by the outage, according to Northern Powergrid.

Engineers were on site at many of the locations by 9am to restore power.

More than 110 homes in Leeds’ LS19 area lost power, along with a further 50 properties in the LS24 postcode.
Elsewhere in West Yorkshire about 120 homes in Halifax and Bradford also suffered a power cut after “an unexpected problem with electricity cables” serving the area.

The Met Office issued a yellow weather warning for wind overnight on Tuesday until 7pm yesterday for Leeds.

At Leeds Bradford Airport, two flights were cancelled as conditions overnight and into the morning worsened.

Unsettled weather is expected to continue throughout the rest of the week with bouts of wet and windy weather.

Looking ahead to the weekend, the Met Office’s deputy chief forecaster, Dan Harris, said: “We are becoming increasingly confident in the change to much colder conditions from the north over the weekend, although some uncertainty still remains in how quickly this reaches southern areas.

“Along with more sunshine, frost, ice and wintry showers are likely to become more prevalent again, and for some a strong easterly to north-easterly wind will make things feel very cold.”

Two flights to Leeds Bradford arriving from elsewhere were cancelled yesterday, an airport spokesman said.

But they said that there was “minimal impact”, and the airport had otherwise been operating as normal.

The cancelled flights were due to weather conditions at other airports, the spokesman added.

It came as roads around Bridgewater Place in Leeds city centre were closed to all vehicles on Tuesday night ahead of the arrival of Storm Eleanor.

Diversions were in place for vehicles around the 
skyscraper until 6am yesterday as people battled the gusty conditions in the city centre.

Elsewhere, a road was blocked in Harrogate after a tree fell onto phone cables following strong winds.

Motorists were warned to avoid the Pannal Bridge area of the town as the tree was lying in the road at about 10am yesterday.

Harrogate Police said on Twitter the tree was blocking the road, and posted a picture showing it had fallen onto phone lines.

On the M62 motorway, highways bosses were forced to close a major bridge as wind speeds of up to 50mph were recorded.

The Ouse Bridge, between Goole and Howden, was closed in both directions to high-sided and “vulnerable” vehicles at about 9am, Highways England said.

Wind speeds of up to 50mph had been recorded on the bridge, between junctions 36 and 37 of the M62.

It later reopened to traffic but a speed restriction was enforced.