Some 15 people have died in weather-related accidents this week across Europe as gale-force winds and storms caused travel mayhem, shut schools, and cut power to hundreds of thousands in freezing temperatures.
The storm barrelled through southwestern Cornwall and parts of Wales overnight Thursday to Friday. Gusts of up to 160 kilometres per hour (100 miles per hour) felled trees and left tens of thousands of homes without power.
A man was found dead in the town of Helston in Cornwall on Friday after a tree fell onto a caravan, Devon and Cornwall police said in a statement.
Most of the UK remains under a weather warning for snow and ice on Saturday, the Met Office national weather agency said. It warned that black ice could cause "disruption" in Scotland and northern England.
Heavy snowfall followed by the storm meant that some 250 schools in Scotland were closed for much of the first week back after the Christmas break.
Around 28,000 homes were still without power at the start of the weekend in southwestern England and the Midlands, according to the network operator National Grid.
Storm Goretti also ploughed through other parts of northern Europe, with at its peak some 380,000 homes in France without power.
But by 6:00 pm local time (1700 GMT), the number of households in the dark was just under 40,000, according to the country's grid operator.
In northern Germany, long-distance rail traffic slowly resumed on Saturday, having been completely suspended on Friday due to another storm named Elli, Deutsche Bahn said.
In the far north of the country, the port city of Hamburg, where large amounts of snow fell, remained particularly disrupted, it added.
A number of rail services will still not be restored on Saturday, notably those linking Hamburg to Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Hanover.
Services from Hamburg to the western Ruhr region or to Berlin are expected to be restored over the course of Saturday, it said.
Storms spark travel mayhem and power cuts in northern Europe
Paris, France (AFP) Jan 9, 2026 -
Gale-force winds and storms barrelled through northern Europe on Friday, claiming more lives, causing travel mayhem, shutting schools, and cutting power to hundreds of thousands in freezing temperatures.
Some 50 flights were cancelled at London's Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers. Air travel was disrupted across Europe from the Czech Republic to Moscow, where over 300 flights were cancelled at four airports serving the Russian capital.
Forecasters from Britain to Germany urged people to stay indoors as they issued weather warnings, including the rare, highest-level red wind alert for the British Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in southwestern England.
Nearly 50,000 homes in England and Wales were still without power on Friday afternoon, according to the National Grid energy provider, most of them in southwest England.
Storm Goretti brought strong winds and heavy snow to parts of the country overnight. It closed more than 250 schools across Scotland, which has struggled through bad weather for much of the first week back after the Christmas break.
In France, Goretti cut power to some 320,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region, the Enedis power provider said.
Overnight, gusts of up to 216 kilometres per hour (134 miles per hour) were registered in France's northwestern Manche region, authorities said.
The winds felled trees, with at least one crashing on homes in France's Seine-Maritime region, without injuries, authorities said.
Gusts of up to 160 kph lashed England and Wales, with the Met Office forecasting agency warning of "very large waves" bringing "dangerous conditions to coastal areas".
It also issued an amber snow warning in Wales, central England and parts of northern England, predicting snow of up to 30 centimetres (11 inches) in some areas.
- 'Hurricane-force' winds -
More than 13 people have died in weather-related accidents this week across Europe.
The latest were in Bavaria, southern Germany, where a road accident linked to the storms killed two people Friday morning, said police.
Also in Bavaria, a 52-year-old man died Thursday after veering off the road and crashing into a tree while driving round a bend, local police said.
Turkish media reported five deaths: two were killed in separate accidents involving dislodged roof tiles, a Syrian man died when a wall fell on him, a construction worker was swept into the Aegean Sea, and a pensioner fell off a roof.
Schools remained shut in parts of northern France, where weather alerts have been issued in 30 other regions.
Giant waves crashed over harbour walls across France's far northwest overnight and, as the storm moved east, it brought flooding and forced the closure of roads and ports. including Dieppe.
Northern Germany faced severe disruption from heavy snow and high winds brought by Storm Elli, with schools ordered closed in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen and long-distance rail services cancelled.
Flights were cancelled or postponed at Hamburg airport while several main roads were paralysed, including some hundreds of miles to the south in the Frankfurt region.
The German weather service warned of "hurricane-force" winds in areas on the North Sea as well as in the southwest, and up to 15 centimetres of snow in parts of the country on Friday.
Two Bundesliga football matches between FC Saint Pauli and RB Leipzig and Werder Bremen and TSG Hoffenheim scheduled for Saturday have been cancelled due to the current weather conditions, the German Football League (DFL) announced.
Carmaker Volkswagen shut its factory at Emden in northeastern Germany, where about 8,000 people work. The country's rail operator Deutsche Bahn said traffic would resume gradually through Saturday.
- Floodwaters receding -
Some 600 schools were closed in Moldova until next Monday and around 1,000 homes were without electricity in Romania.
But floodwaters were receding in parts of the Balkans Friday after heavy snowfall and torrential downpours earlier in the week triggered hundreds of evacuations across several countries and killed at least two people.
In Albania, one of the hardest-hit in the region, Prime Minister Edi Rama said authorities were beginning to count the cost of flooding after hundreds of homes were inundated, mainly in the south.
Warnings of icy conditions and snowfall remained in effect across most of the region, including Serbia, where parts of the west have been without power for days after a snowstorm knocked out power lines.
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