Storm causes floods, chaos in Europe

Travel across much of Europe was thrown into chaos on Monday as Storm Ciara continued to wreak havoc, having caused widespread damage and disruption across the United Kingdom on Sunday.

Air travel was particularly badly affected, with Amsterdam's Schipol Airport and Frankfurt's airport in Germany each grounding more than 100 flights, following significant disruption at London Heathrow on Sunday.

"To minimize the number of flights canceled at short notice, we took the joint decision, alongside our airline and air traffic partners, to preemptively consolidate (Sunday's) schedule," a spokeswoman for Heathrow told CNN.

One flight that did manage to beat the weather conditions but was still influenced by them was an overnight British Airways flight from New York to London on Sunday, which, because of tail winds, completed its journey in just four hours and 56 minutes. The usual time is six hours and 13 minutes.

In southern Germany, wind speeds of more than 170 kilometers per hour were reported in the Black Forest on Monday morning, with warnings of heavy rain and strong winds lasting for several hours.

A crane was blown on to the roof of Frankfurt Cathedral, and the second-highest level of storm warning was issued for the entire southern half of the country, with all long-distance train travel on hold until the storm passed.

In the United Kingdom, some regions experienced a month-and-a-half of rainfall on Sunday, and on Monday train travel was significantly disrupted in many parts of the country because of fallen trees. Flooding was widespread, especially in the north, and more than 20,000 homes across the southern half of England were still without power on Monday.

As so often with fast-moving stories in the modern era, social media posts provided some of the most dramatic footage.

In the town of Hawick in the Scottish Borders region, a guesthouse and bistro were filmed collapsing in the swollen River Teviot, and off the South Coast of England, the Royal National Lifeboat Institute's lifeboat from Hastings was called out in fearsome conditions, attending to a surfer who had got lost and later turned up further down the coast.

Forecasters said weather warnings for the UK could remain in place until Wednesday, with more unsettled conditions to follow, even after the main storm had passed.

"That doesn't mean we're entering a quieter period of weather. It's going to stay very unsettled," Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill said.

"We will be feeling a real drop in temperatures, with an increased risk of snow in northern parts of the UK and likely in Scotland. There could be up to 20 cm on Monday and Tuesday and with strong winds, blizzards aren't out of the question."