As cold as it comes

Following the snow-inducing torrent of arctic air that struck some of Australians’ favourite European travel destinations in the opening week of 2026, the first named storm of the year came barrelling in.

Storm Goretti began as a low-pressure system in the Atlantic Ocean, before being driven eastwards by the jet stream and culminating in a frenzy of fierce winds, rain, ice and snow.

Billed as a “multi-hazard event” by the UK’s Met Office, and a “weather bomb” by other analysts, the storm was given its exotic name by French weather overlords Meteo France as it was expected to reach maximum intensity across the country’s north.

And so it proved, as nearly 400,000 homes there lost electricity when gusts of up to 216km/h tore through on January 9, with Normandy the most affected region, its coastline and harbours lashed by the kind of waves that would deter even the hardiest mariners.

Mercifully, no serious injuries were reported in France (as widespread media coverage announced the storm’s path, people had mostly heeded advice from the authorities to stay indoors).

But emergency services were in high demand, clearing roads blocked by felled trees, while hundreds of cancelled flights and trains and school closures hit France and neighbouring countries, including the Netherlands and Germany, where the weather was so bleak at one point that carmaker Volkswagen temporarily closed its Wolfsburg plant.

Before petering out, the storm was felt as far east as the Balkans and Hungary, where the military assisted motorists caught up in some of the heaviest snowfall there for 15 years.

The British Isles also felt Goretti’s wrath. On the Channel Islands like Jersey and Guernsey, trees were uprooted, smashing house roofs and parked cars.

One man died after a tree collapsed onto his caravan in Cornwall, where the weather battered fishing villages and ripped through botanical gardens that usually thrive from the Atlantic’s warming ocean currents. Almost 100 trees — including pines and firs planted as windbreaks before Queen Victoria’s reign — were devastated on St Michael’s Mount, a tidal island and one of Cornwall’s top visitor attractions.

Wales, central England and western Scotland were also hammered by the storm, with tens of thousands of homes and businesses left without power and transport networks in chaos.

While community clean-ups began and insurance claims were lodged, some Brits capitalised on the relative sweet spot between the calm after the storm and the forecasted perils of the following week. (With temperatures due to climb towards double figures, some regions faced potential flooding thanks to melting snow and heavy rain.) Clips appeared on TV news and social media showing children — and big kids — skiing and tobogganing down white-powdered countryside and hilly residential streets.