Storm Floris: 90mph winds trigger air, rail and sea chaos
More than 22,500 homes were without power, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks said, with 10,000 more affected in Ireland – mostly in Co Donegal and Co Roscommon.
Festivals in Edinburgh were also been disrupted, with the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo among the events cancelled, while the delivery of exam results to some island communities was delayed according to the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
The Met Office confirmed wind gusts of up to 79mph as far apart as Kinloss, east of Inverness, and the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, with 82mph recorded at Wick in Caithness.
Transport was paralysed across much of northern Britain. Network Rail closed all rail lines north of the Central Belt from midday, while a number of roads have been blocked.
Disruption will continue into Tuesday. Ross Moran, Network Rail Scotland route director, said: 'Storm Floris has caused significant disruption to Scotland's railway, with wind speeds of up to 90mph, unprecedented for a summer storm.
'Our teams will work through the night, but this work will continue into Tuesday morning. We'll use two helicopters to assist engineers on the ground. We're grateful to passengers for their patience whilst we do this.'
Earlier, the train operator had appealed to property owners to secure 'tents, trampolines or furniture' to prevent them being blown on to railway tracks.
Anglo-Scottish rail travel was nigh-impossible on the East Coast and West Coast main lines. LNER and Lumo warned passengers not to attempt to travel north of Newcastle, while Avanti West Coast advised travellers not to venture north of Preston.
The Caledonian Sleeper serving Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William is cancelled overnight on Monday. Train operators will accept passengers' tickets dated Monday on Tuesday, and in some cases Wednesday.
Travellers were able to reach or leave Scotland by air for some of the day, but high winds at the northern airports of Aberdeen and Inverness caused two flights to turn back to their starting points. Both easyJet from Luton to Inverness and KLM from Amsterdam to Aberdeen abandoned their landings and flew back, with passengers enduring 900-mile 'flights to nowhere'.
By 6pm the aviation data analyst, Cirium, had calculated more than 150 flights were cancelled: 79 departures and 74 arrivals. Most served northern Scotland and Northern Ireland. Aberdeen was worst affected with 29 cancellations, while Belfast City experienced 21 grounded flights.
A number of campervans have been blown over on the A87 road, which leads to Portree on the Isle of Skye.
Police Scotland said: "We have received multiple reports of campervans being blown over on the A87 between Broadford and Portree due to high winds caused by Storm Floris.
"We are advising motorists not to travel on the Bealach na Ba road and anyone with campervans should remain parked in sheltered areas until the wind speed reduces."
Elsewhere, some roads in Scotland and northern England were blocked by fallen trees.
The vast majority of ferries serving western Scotland were cancelled. Caledonian MacBrayne warned people planning to sail on Tuesday: 'Due to forecast adverse weather, sailings will be liable to disruption or cancellation at short notice.
Northlink, which serves Orkney and Shetland from mainland Scotland, warns of the possibility of disruption 'through to Wednesday 6 August'.
Storm Floris is the sixth named storm of the 2024-25 naming season, which runs from early September to late August.
January's Storm Eowyn was the most recent.
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Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Hot spells could hit UK with above-average temperatures after Storm Floris
The UK could see hot spells and increasing temperatures just days after the country was battered by Storm Floris, the Met Office said. The forecaster said the mercury would likely be above average from 19 August towards the start of September, as the weather becomes drier and settled from the middle of the month. It comes after Storm Floris, the sixth named storm of the season, brought chaos for tens of thousands of people on Monday as trains, flights and ferries were disrupted. 'Above-average temperatures overall seem most likely, with the potential for hot spells to develop, especially in the East and South,' a Met Office spokesperson said. 'Although dry weather is likely to dominate, periods of rain or showers and thunderstorms may develop at times, these perhaps more likely later in the period.' On Monday, tens of thousands of households were left without electricity after Storm Floris wreaked havoc on power lines. Engineers worked to restore power to around 22,000 properties in the north and north-east of Scotland on Tuesday morning after Storm Floris hit the country with high winds. Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) said it had restored power to 50,000 properties since the onset of the storm, which is called "the most damaging summer storm in recent memory". The company, which is the network operator for northern Scotland, said it had organised meal provision in some of the affected communities. Winds of more than 100mph were recorded on Monday as the storm swept across the country. Gusts of 134mph were recorded on the summit of Cairngorm in the Scottish Highlands. On lower ground, gusts of 82mph at Wick airport in Scotland were recorded, with speeds in excess of 70mph in other parts of the country, the Met Office said. Work is also underway to clear trees from several railway lines, with the government adding there were 119 incidents on the rail network caused by Storm Floris, including 75 tree-related ones. On Tuesday morning, Network Rail said it had reopened 30 out of 34 routes in Scotland, but ScotRail is urging customers to check their journey via the app, website or JourneyCheck before they travel. Half the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry routes in western Scotland are still affected by Storm Floris. Sailings between Oban, Colonsay and Islay are cancelled for the day.
Business Insider
5 hours ago
- Business Insider
A plane coming in to land was forced to U-turn and fly 400 miles back to where it started in the middle of a major storm
An easyJet flight was close to landing in northern Scotland before diverting all the way back to where it came from when a major storm stopped it from touching down. Flight 621 took off from London Luton Airport an hour and a half behind schedule on Monday, due largely to Storm Floris, a major weather event hitting the UK this week. The delays would only get worse for passengers. After about an hour, the Airbus A319 reached its intended destination of Inverness. However, while Flightradar24 shows the plane descended as low as 2,000 feet, it was unable to land. Instead, it flew the roughly 400 miles back to Luton, becoming a so-called flight to nowhere. It touched down around 2:25 p.m., landing back where it started after two hours and 800 miles of travel. An easyJet spokesperson said Flight 621 was required to return to London Luton, "due to strong winds at Inverness." "As the forecast was not set to improve, unfortunately, the flight was unable to operate," they added. Storm Floris caused huge disruption across the UK on Monday. The Met Office warned of wind gusts between 50 and 70 mph, reaching 90mph on some exposed coasts and hills. More than 70,000 homes were left without power, according to Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks. The network called Floris "the most damaging summer storm in recent memory." The UK's train operator was also working to clear routes, with 119 incidents reported on train lines across Scotland on Monday. Cirium, the aviation analytics firm, reported that 134 flights were canceled as of 3 p.m. on Monday. Belfast and Aberdeen were the worst-affected airports, it added. "We are doing all we can to minimise the impact of the weather for our customers, providing options to rebooking or a refund, as well as hotel accommodation and meals for those who require them," the easyJet spokesperson added. "The safety and well-being of our customers and crew is our highest priority and while this was outside of our control, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused by the weather."
New York Times
7 hours ago
- New York Times
An Inn-to-Inn Walk on Scotland's Idyllic East Coast
After days of North Atlantic gloom, the sky was an unblemished blue, and frothy waves crashed on the rocks edging the Fife Coastal Path in eastern Scotland, sending flocks of ruddy turnstones wheeling over farm fields inland. The Fife Coastal Path stretches 117 miles from Kincardine to Newburgh, following basalt shores and linking fishing villages to the golf mecca of St. Andrews. It's a walk for nature lovers, popular with through-hikers and my chosen destination for testing the value of surrendering control. As an independent traveler, I spend hours plotting itineraries. This time, I'd entrusted Macs Adventure, which plans self-guided walking trips, with the details. Macs and companies such as Inntravel and InnWalking handle hotel reservations and route planning in walking trips designed for individuals rather than groups. Luggage transfers between lodgings sweeten the deal, freeing travelers to tote only their day packs. For my test run last fall, I chose a relatively short trip from the Macs portfolio, which is primarily Europe-focused, with a few itineraries in Japan and New Zealand. The four-night itinerary on the Fife Coastal Path, which included lodging, breakfasts, luggage transfers and access to the Macs app, which has a detailed map, starts at $795 a person sharing a double room; as a solo traveler, I paid $965. A reasonable price, I thought, figuring that if I planned it myself, I would have paid only about $165 less. But ceding planning meant accepting someone else's idea of a perfect trip. Could my inner control freak let go? A Good Start I began my trip on a Saturday in Kirkcaldy, a roughly 40-minute train ride from Edinburgh. Macs reserved a room for me at the Strathearn Hotel, a former 1880s villa opposite the coastal remains of the 15th-century Ravenscraig Castle where I would begin walking the next morning. At the hotel pub, I met Graeme Mitchell, the owner of the Strathearn, nursing a Tennent's Lager while his wife, Loraine, pitched in behind the bar on an afternoon busy with birthday and anniversary parties. Few in the packed pub were staying in the 15 rooms upstairs, but many locals offered their advice on my route, including where to have a bowl of soup (Crail Harbour Gallery and Tearoom), visit a farmer's market (Ardross Farm Shop) and find the best fish and chips (the village of Anstruther). Since the Macs itinerary didn't include meals, I relied on substantive hotel breakfasts and trail snacks to see me through each day of walking. The Strathearn set a high bar with its generous offerings — I chose two poached eggs on avocado toast — the next morning. Afterward, I entrusted my backpack to the front desk clerk for the handoff to a taxi that would transfer it to the next hotel, and set out with little more than a water bottle. Caves and Castles Below Ravenscraig Castle at low tide, fingers of seaweed-covered rock extended from a rocky beach into the placid sea, allowing me to set out on the sand for Leven, roughly 10 miles ahead. At times, rising tides would push me onto higher ground where parallel trails were edged with white and purple asters. Towns dot the Fife Coast, providing a continual diet of discovery. It wasn't long before I reached Dysart and its 18th-century stone-walled harbor where skiffs rested in the shallows. Stacks of lobster traps leaned against stone buildings, and the nameplates of boats such as Nauti Buoy, Dubbie Braes and Breadwinner decorated a corrugated metal shelter. With an entire day to travel just 10 miles and no bag to slow me down, I often wandered from the path, ducking into a cafe in West Wemyss for tea and diverting far from the trail for ice cream at the Perfect Scoop in East Wemyss. Back on track, I passed the Wemyss Caves, concealing 1,500-year-old carvings by the ancient Picts people. Above them, I scrambled up a steep path to the ruins of MacDuff's Castle, built by the Earls of Fife in the 14th century, and magnificent sea views. In Leven, the path became a paved sidewalk along the oceanfront, busy with dog walkers and strollers on a cloudy but bright day. Just past the town center, I turned a block inland to reach the Lomond Guest House, where I was welcomed by the innkeeper and reunited with my backpack in a cozy second-floor room. Tired by the five-hour walk, I called a cab to go three miles up the shore for dinner at the Crusoe inn (hake with creamed potatoes was £21.95, or about $29) and a chance to stare out to sea from a stationary spot. Tees and Tides From Leven, the beach path traversed soft dunes and then grassy banks that delivered me to the edge of a golf course. A worn groove across a fairway indicated my course despite a warning sign: 'Extreme care is required if using this access way. You are at risk of being injured by golf balls.' Hands over head, I dashed to the far side of the Lundin Golf Club. Scotland has a tradition of open access to private land for walkers — details can be found in the Scottish Outdoor Access Code — and in the next agricultural stretch signs reminded hikers not to make excessive noise or disturb the animals. One farm posted a picture of an angry bull to deter entry. Gradually the path, uncrowded in the shoulder season, climbed a series of cliffs crowned by the ruins of World War II lookout posts. Descending a hill beside the Elie Golf Course, I helped a player search for his ball on a rocky beach. Another cliff-top view introduced the tidy town of Earlsferry and its neighbor, Elie, linked by nearly a mile of golden sand. Since the Victorian age, travelers have visited the area, known as East Neuk, where picturesque villages are nestled in valleys and quarried jetties quell the churn of the sea. Elie's harbor walls curl around to protect the beach and its dunes, site of the Elie Seaside Sauna, with a picture window framing tranquil views of dune grass. I booked an hourlong session (£12) at the end of the day's walk and found myself in a stifling chamber where the thermometer read 95 Celsius, or 203 Fahrenheit. It was enough to drive me and my seven sauna mates into the North Sea despite chilly waters. Booked at the nearby Ship Inn, a stylish, six-room hotel in a series of waterfront cottages, I put my feet up on the bay window of my oceanfront room and, using supplied binoculars, watched oystercatchers foraging at low tide. The inn's restaurant highlights locally grown, raised and caught food (at dinner, wild mushroom stroganoff was £21.95, and lobster linguine £29.95), another Macs win for ensuring that, after a long hike, I could explore the region's locavore culinary scene without leaving the hotel. A Wild Coast Coastal erosion has pushed the first two miles of the trail leaving Elie to the A917 roadway. But at low tide, I found the beach route open and left town via the coastal ruins of the 1770 Lady's Tower, built for the wife of a local industrialist who, when she wanted to skinny-dip, would have a servant ring a bell warning the townspeople to stay clear. As a pod of dolphins swam past, a bird-watcher offered me a close-up through his high-powered scope. The most scenic stretch of the walk, the 10.5-mile route to Crail, passed the Ardross Farm Shop filled with locally raised foods, intriguing tide pools, flocks of pink-footed geese and the moody 13th-century ruins of Newark Castle. Lobster traps lined the stone wharf of St. Monans, and beyond it a windmill marked the location of former salt pans. I wandered into art galleries in tidy Pittenweem, admiring the whitewashed walls and terra cotta roofs that reflect the town's historic trade with Belgium and the Netherlands. In the next village, Anstruther, I heeded the advice of a Strathearn regular and ordered crispy haddock and chips (£14) at Anstruther Fish Bar facing the harbor. Reluctant to give up the last isolated section of the trail, I lingered over the final four miles as the wind rushed waves onto driftwood-strewed shores. The route eventually reached the walls of Crail that buffered the town from the sea, not far from the homey Honeypot Guesthouse, where I again claimed my bag. The next morning, as I hoisted my eight-pound pack for the bus trip to St. Andrews nearby, I realized Macs had inserted itself into the love-hate relationship I have with luggage, in which I love the wardrobe refresh but hate the weight. Unencumbered, I saw more and ached less, two priceless outcomes. Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2025.
