How European Windstorms Work

Between 23 and 25 October 2026, Storms Austen and Boelo swept across Britain, France, the Low Countries, Germany and Scandinavia, cutting power to more than 150,000 homes and grounding flights. This film explains how such windstorms are made: cold polar air meeting warm tropical air over the Atlantic, the jet stream that pulls air out of a low, the Earth's spin that turns inflowing air into a spiral, warm and cold fronts, why closely packed isobars mean strong wind, weather bombs and sting jets, the Great Storm of 1987, how these storms differ from hurricanes, and why European weather services now give them names.

How European windstorms work

Where cold air meets warm, and the sky pulls the air away.

Two kinds of air

A storm begins at a boundary.

Birth of a low

Take air away from the top, and the pressure falls.

Wind

The tighter the isobars, the stronger the wind.

The Great Storm

One October night in 1987.

Naming storms

A name people will remember and act on.

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