Wind speeds hit 135 km/h as twin storms leave 150,000 homes dark

Winds of 135 km/h (84 mph) recorded in Argyll and Bute on Sunday marked the peak intensity of a double storm event that left more than 150,000 homes without electricity across the UK, France, and Germany. The back-to-back systems, named Boelo and Austen, passed through the region within 24 hours, disrupting travel and communications while causing one fatality.

The United Kingdom sustained the highest number of outages, with more than 82,000 homes affected. In southwestern Scotland, a 60-year-old man died after a tree fell on him. Two women were injured by a separate falling tree in central Scotland. The Met Office warned that Boelo posed a danger to life from flying debris and crashing waves, urging residents to stay indoors.

Across the channel, France experienced its first major storm of the autumn. Enedis, the French energy company, reported that 288,000 homes lost power at Austen's peak on Saturday. By midday Sunday, 59,000 homes, primarily in Normandy and Brittany, remained dark. A marathon runner in northern France was lightly injured when a tree fell during a race.

In Germany, the storm cut power to 10,000 homes in and around Freiburg-Breisgau. The city's main hospital restricted services to emergency cases due to the blackout, which also severed the local mobile phone network. German police reported two serious injuries on Saturday when scaffolding collapsed at a market in Nastatten.

The storms also impacted the Netherlands and Belgium. Four people were injured by falling trees in Brussels. Off the island of Schiermonnikoog in the Netherlands, three crew members on a freight ship were injured. Two were rescued by helicopter and taken to a mainland hospital. Hundreds of flights were cancelled or diverted across northern Europe, including at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

The sequence of events highlights the rapid succession of these weather systems. Authorities in the UK warned of flood risks in parts of Scotland and England. In Brighton, an unused pier was blown away by Austen on Friday. Experts have linked such extreme weather events to climate change, noting the increasing frequency of such intense autumnal storms.