Storm Austen Closes Jersey Airport and Harbour Under Red Wind Warning

Storm Austen swept over Jersey, prompting closures of the Airport, the Harbour and a range of other services. A Red Wind Warning, the highest possible category, was in place across the Channel Islands, with northwesterly winds blowing at a severe gale F9.

Paul Aked, head of meteorology at Jersey Met, said gale-force winds were forecast to begin at midnight, with the peak of the storm starting at 3am and continuing for most of the working morning. Gusts were strongest in the morning, topping 80mph, while a gale F8 continued to blow with occasional gusts of 70mph.

A Ports of Jersey spokesperson said it expected severe disruption to flights and sailings. The Harbour, which shut at 6pm the previous evening, was to remain closed all day, and Ports said it hoped to reopen it the following day. Travellers were urged to keep in close contact with their airline or travel agent for updates.

Other services were affected too. At the hospital, emergency, urgent and maternity services operated as normal, but Islanders were asked to attend the emergency department only for serious illness or injury requiring emergency care. La Collette recycling and green waste centre was closed all day, sports centres were shut until at least 3pm, and Howard Davis, Coronation and Sir Winston Churchill parks were closed until at least Saturday morning, when any damage would be assessed. Schools were closed on Friday, a decision made on Wednesday to give parents time to arrange childcare.

For an island served by one airport and one harbour, a severe wind event is a connectivity event. When both are shut in the same window, scheduled flights and ferry sailings cannot cover for each other, and the disruption falls on the same passengers at once. That is why Ports of Jersey pointed travellers to their airlines and travel agents rather than offering a single reopening time for the airport.

For charter and business-aviation traffic, the practical effect is the same as for scheduled services: movements wait on the wind. Aked said Storm Austen was not as strong as Storm Ciaran in 2023 or Storm Goretti earlier this year, which suggests the Channel Islands see storms of this order often enough that closures are a recurring planning assumption rather than a rare shock.

The next point that settles the picture is the Harbour, which Ports said it hoped to reopen the day after the storm. Flight resumption and the catch-up of delayed sailings will follow from the wind easing, and falling trees on roads, which Aked warned of, may slow ground access to the airport even after conditions improve.