Weather warnings could mean temporary Christmas market closures

Recent weather warnings say that heavy rainfall and strong winds will continue in the next few days, which could affect the stalls at the Christmas Markets.

The Met Office have released warnings that temperatures will hit daily lows of 7 degrees, and rain is expected to commence at around 10pm and continue for the next three days.

This could affect the festive Markets in the St Georges Hall area, which attracted almost two million visitors to the city region last year, according to the Liverpool Echo.

The Environment Agency have also published 12 flood warnings and 62 flood alerts which is affecting areas in the Northwest such as Chester, with warnings of it increasing rainfall in the River Mersey and River Dee.

Liverpool Christmas markets

Vendors from the market where conflicted on how much this would affect their businesses.

Stuart Sykes, from Leeds, of the Dogs Trust vendor at the Christmas Markets said: “The weather means a lot of people will not come, so that’s less business for everyone else.

The flood warnings would mean that we would have to close.”

Liverpool Christmas markets have been forced to close in the past due to strong winds making it unsafe for both vendors and shoppers.

Holly Robinson, a worker at a toys stall said: “If the weather warnings are coming through and the weather is poor, it means less people turning up and coming out,

Some of our teddies can get rain on them and dampen them meaning potential damage, but usually it isn’t anything major and only affects the ones on the outside, if it’s just bad weather usually we still get a good turnout.”

St Georges hall markets

The met office has said winds reached around 7 miles per hour the past two days, however winds could reach up to 21 miles per hour in the next three days.

Rachel Rodgers, who works a jewellery stall at the festive markets said: “We have still been pretty busy, the weather was bad yesterday and it was quiet for about an hour, people took a bit of shelter and then started coming back out,

"They will close if there are high winds, but normal rainfall usually means we stay open unless its torrential, other than that we tend to stay open.”

She added: “We could possibly close if there are flood warnings, generally, if it’s a threat to life or poses any sort of danger we would probably have to close."

"I think since the markets have moved up to St. Georges it has been busier overall, when it was by the Primark it was a bit more spread out and less popular.”

The Gov.uk flooding service has reported the river Mersey’s levels are rising due to rainfall with it now at a height of 2.93 metres.

There are currently no direct flood warnings for the Liverpool city region, however this could develop.