Storm in Western Europe Leaves 14 Dead

Officials in Western Europe said Storm Ciaran killed at least 14 people over three days as it swept from the North Atlantic across Britain and northwestern France and into the North Sea, bringing with it record-breaking wind, heavy rain, high seas, hail and possibly a tornado.

The storm, named Ciaran by Britain’s meteorological agency, known as the Met Office, brought record-breaking wind to France, with 193-kph (120-mph) wind gusts reported in Brittany. The nation’s energy minister reported 1.2 million households lost power.

Officials in Italy’s Tuscany region declared a state of emergency with trees down and streets flooded. Nearly 200 millimeters (8 inches) of rain was reported on the northwestern coast.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, Tuscany Governor Eugenio Giani said six people had died in the storm, including an 85-year-old man who drowned on the ground floor of his house near Prato, north of Florence.

Media reports said falling trees, uprooted by strong winds, killed several people in France, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany.

Britain’s Met Office reported the storm brought hailstones the size of tennis balls on the island of Jersey, where it also may have generated a tornado, rare for the region. The office said the storm set a record for the lowest barometric pressure recorded in the month of November. Meteorologists say, typically, that the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm.

The storm receded in northern France and along the Atlantic coast Friday, with the main parts of Ciaran spinning over the North Sea.  But heavy rains continued in some regions.

Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean, Corsica faced unusually fierce winds Friday – up to 140 kph (87 mph) – and regions in the Pyrenees, the mountains that separate the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe, were under flood warnings.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
…