Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell's HMS Association was blown from Harwich to Gothenburg in Sweden before way could be made back to England.

Hundreds of people drowned in flooding on the Somerset Levels, along with thousands of sheep and cattle, and one ship was found 15 miles (24 km) inland.

At sea, many ships were wrecked, some of which were returning from helping Archduke Charles, the claimed King of Spain, fight the French in the War of the Spanish Succession.

[7] Another ship, torn from its moorings in the Helford River in Cornwall, was blown for 200 miles (320 km) before grounding eight hours later on the Isle of Wight.

The storm also caught a convoy of 130 merchant ships sheltering at Milford Haven, along with their man of war escorts Dolphin, Cumberland, Coventry, Looe, Hastings and Hector.

[4] The storm was unprecedented in ferocity and duration and was generally reckoned by witnesses to represent the anger of God, in recognition of the "crying sins of this nation".

Daniel Defoe produced his full-length book The Storm (July 1704) in response to the calamity, calling it "the tempest that destroyed woods and forests all over England".

[10] Defoe reported that the sails in some turned so fast that the friction between the wooden brakes and the wheel caused the wood to overheat and catch fire.

[11] He thought that the destruction of the sovereign fleet was a punishment for their poor performance against the Catholic armies of France and Spain during the first year of the War of the Spanish Succession.

[12] In the English Channel, fierce winds and high seas swamped some vessels outright and drove others onto the Goodwin Sands, an extensive sand bank off the southeast coast of England and the traditional anchorage for ships waiting either for passage up the Thames Estuary to London or for favourable winds to take them out into the Channel and the Atlantic Ocean.

[13] The Royal Navy was badly affected, losing thirteen ships including the entire Channel Squadron,[13] and upwards of 1,500 seamen drowned.