PARIS: Gale-force winds and storms barrelled through northern Europe on Friday, causing travel mayhem, shutting schools, cutting power to hundreds of thousands in freezing temperatures and leading to the cancellation of two Bundesliga matches.

Some 50 flights were cancelled in London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers, with air travel 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.

All trains were cancelled in Cornwall on Friday.

Some 57,000 homes in the UK remained without electricity, according to the National Grid energy provider, after Storm Goretti brought strong winds and heavy snow to parts of the country overnight.

More than 250 schools remained closed across Scotland, which has struggled through bad weather for much of the first week back after the Christmas break.

Over 300,000 homes without power

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 residential buildings 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”.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2026