Storm Eowyn caused havoc Friday as it battered Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland, killing one person and leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without power, flights grounded and schools shut.
Gusts of 183 kilometers (114 miles) per hour—breaking an 80-year-old record—brought down power lines, felled trees, blocked roads and destroyed two Irish sports facilities.
Ahead of the storm, some 4.5 million people on Thursday received emergency alerts on their phones, the “largest real-life use of the tool to date” on Thursday, the UK government said.
Scientists have shown that climate change caused by humans burning fossil fuels is making storms more severe, super-charged by warmer oceans.
Storms, however, are natural phenomena and to date no specific scientific attribution to climate change has been made for this storm.