STORM Lilian will bring strong winds and heavy rain to Cumbria which may lead to disruption to travel and infrastructure on Friday morning.

Lilian will move northeast early on Friday morning at around 5am bringing strong winds for northern England and Wales as well as parts of southern Scotland. 

The whole of Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire will be affected.

The Met Office suggests that some very strong winds are likely to develop with gusts widely in the 50 to 60mph range, with a lower chance that a small core of winds gusting 80 mph, could push quickly east during the morning.

The Met Office explained that these winds are likely to affect major routes such as the M6, A66 and A1(M). As well as the strong winds, some locally heavy rainfall will add to the difficult travel conditions.

It comes as flood alerts and warnings were in place for much of the Cumbrian coastline on Thursday.

READ MORE: Honister Pass sees over 100mm of rain in last six hours

Warnings highlight potential travel disruption, the possibility of power cuts and dangerous conditions near coasts.  

Met Office Chief Meteorologist Jason Kelly said: “Storm Lilian will bring some potentially damaging gusts during Friday morning, with gusts widely in the 50-60mph range, with the possibility of some gusts in excess of 75mph in a few places.

“There’s associated rainfall with Lilian that has also resulted in a Met Office warning for parts of Scotland. Within the warning area, another 50mm of rain is possible over high ground, with 20-30mm falling quite widely. Much of this is falling on saturated ground so increases the chance of some surface water flooding.”

Lilian will move into the North Sea on Friday morning, with reducing winds and scattered showers following for most, though further rain is likely in southern England by the end of the day.

Lilian is the twelfth named storm of this storm naming season which runs from September through to the following September. This is the furthest through the list of names the Western European storm naming group has got since storm naming was introduced in 2015.

Following the Bank Holiday weekend for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, there are signs of more settled conditions developing into the middle part of next week, with even the chance of conditions turning hot for a time in the south and southeast.