Forecasters from the Met Office have officially named Storm Arwen and issued yellow weather warnings for wind and cold weather across the North West.

Engineers for Electricity North West are putting plans in place to monitor the network and ensure supplies and teams are available to respond if any electricity substations are affected by the heavy winds and cold weather.

Sam Loukes, Electricity North West’s incident manager, said: “We’re going to be as prepared as ever for Storm Arwen.

“We always have engineers on standby but when bad weather is forecast, we can ramp this up where possible.

“Although this is the first named storm of this winter, we’re well practised given the bad weather that has hit the region in recent years. Throughout the area, we’ll have local teams available to respond quickly on the ground, our customer team will be available for support and we’ll be sending out regular updates via our social media channels.

“We invest money throughout the year to ensure our network is as resilient as possible but when the weather hits, we make sure we’re ready to respond too.

“If anybody sees any damage to electricity equipment over the next few days then I urge them to stay away and report it to us immediately by calling 105.”

You can view any live power cut information in the region on Electricity North West’s website here, get in touch on Twitter or Facebook, or by calling for free on 105 from any phone.

Electricity North West offers extra support to customers through their Priority Services Register. For more information and to register visit www.enwl.co.uk/priority.

Customers can stay safe and prepare themselves in the event of potential power cuts by following the simple advice here www.enwl.co.uk/power-cuts/helpful-tips.

You can see how Electricity North West prepares the network throughout the year by watching this video.