Ireland and UK hit by record winds as Storm Éowyn paralyzes transport and leaves 1 million people without power

London — Record winds hit Ireland, Northern Ireland and parts of mainland Britain on Friday, with strong gales sweeping across the region, including all of Scotland, as the islands bore the brunt of Storm Éowyn.

Met Éireann, the Republic of Ireland’s national weather service, said the country was being hit by wind gusts of up to 114 mph in County Galway, the highest ever recorded on the island.

The Republic of Ireland was under a “Red Warning” from its meteorological body, meaning the public was warned that the storm was “extremely destructive and dangerous”.

ESB Networks, the government body responsible for most of Ireland’s power grid, said on Friday morning that more than 715,000 homes, farms and businesses had been left without power as a result of the storm. More power outages were expected throughout Friday, ESB said. Northern Ireland Electricity Networks said approximately 240,000 customers were without power in the region on Friday afternoon, meaning around one million people were without power across the island.

Scottish Power, an electricity provider in Scotland, said around 15,000 of its customers were without power, according to CBS News sister network BBC News.

More than 230 scheduled flights departing or arriving at Dublin Airport were canceled on Friday morning as a result of the bad weather, and all public transport was suspended across Ireland as government officials warned the public to stay indoors.

The UK Met Office said on Friday that similar red warning notices were in force in parts of Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Gusts of more than 90mph were recorded in Northern Ireland and parts of North Wales on Friday morning as Storm Éowyn moved towards the UK. Many trains and other public transport options were blocked in the north of the UK and there were initial reports of some wind damage to trees and buildings.

“Storm Éowyn is now bringing very strong winds to parts of the UK. There is a chance of gusts of 100mph in exposed locations within the Red Warning area,” UK Chief Meteorologist Jason Kelly said in a statement. announced on Friday. “Anyone in these red and amber warning areas should listen to the advice of local first responders and stay up to date with weather warnings for their area.”

The most severe red warnings in the UK, indicating a possible threat to life, covered Northern Ireland and the far north of England and southern and central Scotland, but the amber warning area, indicating a likely disruption of travel and a possible risk of flying debris. , covered a much wider area, extending south to Manchester and Liverpool.

Storm Éowyn (pronounced AY-oh-win) became what’s known as a bomb cyclone between Thursday and Friday, according to CBS News partners at the Weather Channel. The storm has its origins in the recent winter storm off the US Gulf Coast.

“The jet stream energy that helped produce a historic snowfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Tuesday triggered the development of low pressure off the southeastern U.S. coast. From there, that low “intensified rapidly over the North Atlantic and spread to Ireland and the United Kingdom as an intense ‘bomb cyclone,'” the Weather Channel said.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes a bomb cyclone, also known as bombogenesis, as a rapidly developing storm that occurs when atmospheric pressure drops by at least 24 millibars in a 24-hour period. The pressure associated with Storm Éowyn decreased by about 50 millibars as it approached the west coast of Ireland, according to the British meteorological service.