Hurricane Eunice tore down roofs and trees, crushed cars and left planes skidding on London runways as millions in the United Kingdom stayed home to stay out of hurricane-strength winds.
The UK Met Office on Friday morning expanded its rare "hazard-to-life" weather warning to cover most of the south of England and parts of Wales before Eunice gathered momentum, killing three people in England. , with winds of 122 mph (mph) - the fastest on record in the country. High wind speed makes wind storms intensify.
On Friday, a woman died after a tree fell on her car in Muswell Hill, north London, according to a statement from the London Fire Brigade.
A man in his 50s also died while driving his car in Liverpool on Friday, according to a press release from Merseyside Police.
In Ireland, which is experiencing winds stronger than Eunice, a man in his late 60s was killed after being struck by a falling tree, the National Police Service, known as Gardai, told CNN confirmed to.
The man, who has not been named, died in County Wexford, southeast Ireland, and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The storm also wreaked havoc in mainland Europe, with German broadcaster ZDF reporting two deaths in Germany, in which a man fell from his roof and another his car collided with a fallen tree.
State broadcaster RTBF reported that a 79-year-old Englishman in western Belgium also died after falling from gravel and falling into the waters of a marina caused by strong winds.
Meanwhile, the Amsterdam-Amstland fire brigade on Friday reported three deaths in the Netherlands after falling trees had the highest weather warning for much of the country and people were advised to stay home before the storm .
Storms have damaged buildings in the UK, with footage shared on social media showing the roof of London's O2 Arena severely damaged by strong winds. Op de #vrijheidslaan is een boom op een fietser terecht gekomen in Amsterdam. Deze fietser is higherdoor overleden.
Large sections of the fabric roof were cut and torn by gusts, while the building was evacuated and sealed off.
On its website, 02 said an event would be rescheduled at the venue on Friday night.
"The safety of our visitors is of paramount importance, and we will continue to assess the current situation and act accordingly," the statement said.
Elsewhere, a CNN reporter spotted flying parts from a house in the south-west London area of Surbiton. The roof crushed the car parked on the road.
A social media video shows a building housing lifeboats, part of which has been blown off its roof at Senan Beach in Cornwall Country, where strong winds were pushing waves over a sea wall. Police in Cornwall and neighboring Devon said they had received a high volume of calls about flying debris, collapsed roofs and fallen trees.
In other video footage shared on Twitter, the spire of a church in Somerset is seen falling in strong winds.
Residents around Britain also posted pictures of fallen fences and trees on the streets on social media.
On Friday, there was no electricity in many homes, including small areas of London and large areas of southern England.
As dozens of flights were canceled at major London airports, more than 200,000 people tuned in to watch a live stream on YouTube of planes landing at London's Heathrow. The plane was seen battling strong gusts of wind as it landed, some of them wobbled in the middle of the wind, others slid from side to side as they hit the runway.
The video, on the Big Jet TV channel, was accompanied by humorous remarks by presenter Jerry Dyer, who entertained the audience by offering words of encouragement to the pilots, at one point: "Come on dude, you can do it!"
British Airways said it was halting several aircraft and expected "significant disruption", but most flights would proceed as planned.
"Safety is our top priority and we are canceling many flights," British Airways said in a statement.
The airline said it is looking at deploying larger aircraft where possible to better withstand the weather.
Rail companies have urged customers to reconsider their plans, with blanket speed restrictions implemented for most lines across the country.
In a statement on Friday, Network Rail warned of high winds blowing away trees and other debris on railway lines, which then block trains and cause delays and cancellations.
A Sting Jet Can Hit
Meteorologists have also raised the possibility of a sting jet, the weather phenomenon that made the Great Hurricane of 1987 so devastating and deadly. Eighteen people were killed in that storm and 15 million trees were torn down in winds of up to 100 mph.
A sting jet is a very narrow and concentrated burst of powerful, upper-level winds that can form inside powerful weather systems. According to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam, it descends on Earth's surface and can last for a few hours, potentially causing damage to life and property.
"The 'sting' refers to the cloud formation it creates, which resembles the sting of a scorpion," he said.
Eunice is the second storm to hit the UK after Hurricane Dudley left thousands of homes without power in parts of Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland on Wednesday. Those homes have since been reconnected.
Hannah Klok, professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, UK, urged people to stay at home where possible.
He said people should not take the red alert lightly as the wind can uproot trees and roof tiles.
"If you hit one of them you will be seriously injured or killed. The strong wind will drive people and vehicles off the roads, and power lines down," she said.
A Climate Connection?
There is little to suggest any link between the frequency and intensity of storms – or winds – in northern Europe at current levels of man-made climate change and global warming.
But the damage from thunderstorms is getting worse as the rainfall associated with them becomes more intense, a trend that many scientific studies have linked to climate change. Sea level rise also plays a role.
"Human-caused climate change with more intense rainfall and higher sea levels continues to warm the planet, flooding from coastal storms and prolonged deluge will be worse when these rare, explosive storms hit us in a warming world, Richard Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Reading, said in a statement.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that northern Europe will see an increase in the frequency of severe thunderstorms if global temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.
By conservative estimates, the temperature rise is currently around 1.1 °C. The world is on track to warm well above 2C, according to an analysis that looked at governments' plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions at last year's COP26 climate talks.