Storm Ciarán follows less than two weeks after Storm Babet, which brought strong winds, heavy rainfall and flash flooding to parts of Scotland and northern and central England, killing several people. The strongest winds will likely be confined to areas closest to the coast, it said. Several rail companies have warned people not to commute, even in the capital, although the Met Office said late Thursday morning that the storm’s path had moved further south than earlier projections showed. Large waves could damage coastal roads and properties.ĭisruption to travel is expected. The UK’s Met Office has warned that the combination of strong winds and rain posed a “danger to life” from flying debris, as trees and homes are expected to suffer damage. Spray and winds pound the M5 motorway network in Somerset, England.

Local media images showed waves crashing into and breaching sea walls in the southwestern English county of Cornwall. In the southwestern county of Cornwall, 8,500 people were without power, the local council said on X (formerly Twitter), trees were blocking dozens of roads, and more than 100 schools were closed. On the island of Jersey, all schools and the airport were closed, according to the government’s website. The storm has also hit the British Isles and Channel Islands, where red alert warnings are in place. Meanwhile, in Belgium, a 65-year-old woman and a 5-year-old child were killed in Ghent after being hit by branches in two separate incidents, the East Flanders public prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The second victim was a 70 year-old man died in Le Havre after falling while attempting to close his balcony shutters, according to France’s interior ministry. Enedis has mobilized around 3,000 workers and 30 helicopters to re-establish power to affected areas.Ī truck driver was killed after being hit by a falling branch while driving, according to the French Transport Minister Clément Beaune in an interview with French broadcaster Franceinfo. Fallen trees and electricity pylons uprooted by the storm were to blame for the cuts. Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty ImagesĪround 780,000 of those without power are in the northwestern region of Brittany, French energy supplier Enedis said in a statement. Organisms use it to communicate with other animals, find mates, and hunt for food.Waves crashing on the Phare du Four in Porspoder, western France, on November 2, 2023, as Storm Ciarán reached the region. At the same time, many organisms that live in the deep ocean have evolved the ability to produce their own light. This is because a red surface absorbs blue light, effectively making these animals invisible under the tiny amount of light that filters down from above. As a result, many deep-sea organisms are either black or red. Of course, as we go deeper and deeper, eventually there’s no sunlight at all. This creates the green-blue hues that we see in areas around islands and reefs, such as those in the Caribbean Sea. Extremely shallow areas still have some of the green wavelengths of light. It bounces off the sandy bottom, which turns the water a brilliant blue. That’s because light reaches the ocean floor. Shallow areas with clear water often appear turquoise. They contain molecules like chlorophyll that absorb some wavelengths of light and reflect others. These tiny plant-like algae live near the surface, turning sunlight into energy that feeds the ocean ecosystem. Water can also appear green-or red-in areas with lots of phytoplankton. These sediments reflect more of the longer wavelengths of light, turning the water shades of brown. Or churning waves may lift them up from the sea floor. Silt and sand may wash into the ocean from land. Other things can change the color of the water. Not only do they stick around, they’re scattered by particles in the water, making it seem as though the water itself is blue.

Blue and violet, on the other hand, have the shortest wavelengths of visible light, so they are able to penetrate the deepest. As soon as we get more than a few meters underwater, most red and orange have vanished entirely.

When light shines through water, colors with longer wavelengths are absorbed by the water, with the longest wavelengths absorbed first. Other colors have progressively shorter wavelengths, with blue and violet the shortest of all. Different colors of light have different wavelengths. Sunlight contains the full spectrum of visible colors, from red to violet and the whole rainbow in between. Here, the water isn’t reflecting the sky. But if we sink below the surface, the blue color remains. Or even turn a brilliant pink during sunrise or sunset. From the coast, it may appear a deep blue on a sunny day. Why is the ocean blue? People have wondered this for hundreds of years.

Stormy ocean waves video