[4] The storm was named after a Bulgarian man living near Berlin, whose family donated to the university's "Adopt-A-Vortex"[7] programme.

[8] A European windstorm is a severe cyclonic storm that moves across the North Atlantic towards north-western Europe in the winter months.

These storms usually move over the north coast of the United Kingdom, towards Norway but can veer south to affect other countries including Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Poland.

[citation needed] Kyrill was unusual in that its field of hurricane-force winds was very broad, affecting large areas of Germany as well as neighbouring countries at one time.

The German Meteorological Service had advised people to stay indoors and avoid unnecessary trips on 18 January,[9] and wind strengths of up to 12 on the Beaufort scale were seen across the Netherlands and Germany as the storm made landfall.

The storm moved across the German states of Lower Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia first, then spread across the whole country in the evening hours of 18 January.

[13] The UK Met office in a case study stated that Kyrill would have generated a red warning on the colour scale they adopted in 2008.

High winds in the Alps prompted the Austrian weather service to advise the skiers and snowboarders to seek shelter, and caused at least one major motorway tunnel closure.

As of January 2007, it was still unclear whether the mosaic had suffered damage, as museum staff had announced the clean-up would at least take a week due to the fragility of the exhibit.

The next day the Napoli was under tow for repair at Portland Harbour in Dorset, but with forecasts of further high winds it was taken to shelter in Lyme Bay.

The ship had suffered structural damage, including a 1 by 0.5 m (3.3 by 1.6 ft) hole on the starboard side and water flooding and had to be beached in the bay 1-mile (1.6 km) off the East Devon coast at Branscombe[28] The ship leaked oil, sparking a clean-up operation, and widespread reporting in the national news led to the wreck temporarily becoming a tourist attraction and subject to scavenging from the containers which washed up on the beach.

The Cypriot-flagged freighter Golden Sky, carrying a load of fertiliser and fuel oil, ran aground near Ventspils, off the coast of Latvia; the ship's crew were rescued in a joint Latvian and Swedish operation.

Long queues developed around blackspots, in particular replacement crossings of the Manchester Ship Canal including routes through Warrington and over the Runcorn Bridge.

[39] The storm seriously affected the 18 January rush hour all over Great Britain, with heavy snowfalls in Scotland adding to the unpleasant situation.

A general 50 mph (80 km/h) speed restriction was put in place by Network Rail to minimise possible damages.

German railway operator Deutsche Bahn at first limited the maximum speed of its trains to 200 km/h (120 mph),[38] then all services on the domestic InterCity/InterCityExpress network as well as the local services in Northern and Western Germany were discontinued from 17:15 on 18 January onwards, as major main lines (Bremen-Hannover, Hamburg-Hanover, Bremen-Osnabrück) and many branch lines were affected by the storm.

Trains currently on the lines would stop at the next station and stay there, leaving passengers stranded all over Germany in the tens of thousands.

[42] Train services were resumed on the morning of 19 January, but cancellations and delays continued during the weekend as 34,000 kilometres (21,000 mi) of track needed to be checked and cleared.

An InterCity train with 450 passengers on board was stuck near Diepholz and had to be evacuated, Duisburg Hauptbahnhof station was suffering from a power outage as the result of a grid failure.

[16] Late on 18 January, the central railway station in Berlin suffered from major structural damage.

[10] Discussion started as to whether the eight-month-old station was suffering from design failures, but these claims were rejected by both Deutsche Bahn and the architect.

[3] The casualties were distributed as follows: In the United Kingdom the storm caused thirteen[48] deaths: Seven people in the Netherlands were killed as a result of the weather.