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Disruption from Storm Floris will continue into Tuesday, travellers have been warned, after wind gusts of up to 82 mph brought down trees and power lines across Scotland and Ireland, triggering transport chaos for trains, flights and ferries.
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 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.
