Cyclone Kyrill

Cyclone Kyrill was a low-pressure area that evolved into an unusually violent European windstorm, forming an extratropical cyclone with hurricane-strength winds. It formed over Newfoundland on 15 January 2007 and moved across the Atlantic Ocean reaching Ireland and Great Britain by the evening of 17 January. The storm then crossed the North Sea on 17 and 18 January, making landfall on the German and Dutch coasts on the afternoon of 18 January, before moving eastwards toward Poland and the Baltic Sea on the night from 18 to 19 January and further on to northern Russia. Kyrill caused widespread damage across Western Europe, especially in the United Kingdom and Germany. Forty-seven fatalities were reported, as well as extensive disruptions of public transport, power outages to over one hundred thousand homes, severe damage to public and private buildings and major forest damage through windthrow. Twenty tornadoes were reported, the strongest of which were two F3 tornadoes which impacted the towns of Lauchhammer and Wittenberg in eastern Germany on 18 January. The storm was named "Kyrill" on 17 January 2007, by the Free University of Berlin's meteorological institute. The storm was named after a Bulgarian man living near Berlin, whose family donated to the university's "Adopt-A-Vortex" programme.