WEST Somerset appears to have been spared by Storm Eleanor – despite widespread weather warnings for the county.

Although the county got off quite lightly compared to other parts of the UK, there were still some hairy moments with high tides and strong winds driving pebbles off Minehead beach and water over Porlock Weir.

Winds reached speeds of 50mph in West Somerset with the village of Liscombe being the worst affected with 68mph winds battering the town.

Rainfall was also at a high with 7.2mm of rainfall hitting Liscombe and 4.8mm falling on Dunkeswell from 6pm on Tuesday until about 9am on Wednesday.

A spokesman for the Met Office said West Somerset got off lightly as Storm Eleanor hit the north of the UK first.

"The north of the UK took the brunt of Storm Eleanor so they have seen the most damage," the spokesman said.

"Somerset was quite far away from the storm so it was still hit but not as badly.

"We have had no reports of extreme damage across Somerset and this should continue over the coming days as the wind is forecast to drop off and die down."

Watchet Coastguard were on high alert during Storm Eleanor with crew patrolling areas of West Somerset's coastline including Porlock Weir, Blue Anchor, Minehead and Watchet Harbour before and after the high tides.

Somerset County Gazette:

Waves hit Porlock Weir

At Blue Anchor, Watchet Coastguard saw moved litter bins and stones which had been blown into the middle of the road The Environment Agency issued a number of flood warnings for West Somerset and dispatched teams to Minehead and Porlock as a precaution.

But a spokesman said they have had no reports of flooding in the county and that the worst of the storm is now over.

"Porlock was one of the first areas affected by Storm Eleanor," the spokesman said.

"We had a team on standby in case anything hit.

"We had multiple reports from residents that waves were crashing and water was going over the top of Porlock Weir.

"We sent our teams out to monitor the situation for flooding but fortunately there was no flooding to report.

"Somerset wasn't hit badly compared to Devon and Cornwall, they have a longer coastline and so they saw a lot of flooding."

A spokesman for Somerset County Council said their out of hours team responded to 23 calls overnight, 20 of them tree-related.

There is a road closure in place in Pitminster between Kibbles Corner and Green Lane due to a fallen tree which has affected BT cables. 

Somerset County Gazette:

Pebbles lay outside the Ship Inn in Porlock 

But Storm Eleanor's wrath hit other parts of the UK with huge force.

100mph winds hit Cumbria, Yorkshire and Galway in Ireland.

A man escaped with minor injuries in Hensol in South Wales after high speed winds caused a tree to fall on his car.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses across the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland suffered power outages as they bore the brunt of the storm.

They included 55,000 properties in the Republic and 20,000 customers in Northern Ireland.

And a tide-battered harbour wall in Portreath in Cornwall partially collapsed.

A spokesman for the Met Office said winds will gradually ease over the next few days and there will be some showers and sunny spells.