Storm David (also called Cyclone Friederike in Germany) was a compact but deadly European windstorm that heavily affected the British Isles, France, Benelux, Central Europe, Northern Italy, Poland and parts of Eastern Europe in early 2018 with widespread hurricane-force gusts and severe snowfall, creating blizzard conditions in some areas.

Hours after formation, the storm was caught by Fionn's strong jetstream and started moving to the east, posing a threat to Europe.

Meanwhile, the ECMWF and GFS lowered their predictions concerning David's intensity as it was unclear if the system would be able to recover from the structural deterioration that was inflicted by Fionn.

David managed to redevelop a closed circulation while passing over the British Isles and the North Sea in the morning of 18 January, worsening the risks for Central and Eastern Europe.

Subsequently, the storm had some hours to gain additional energy while moving quickly over the North Sea before making landfall in the Netherlands.

The cyclone's minimal pressure bottomed out at 974 hPa (28.8 inHg) while centred over the North Sea, which was substantially lower than predicted by GFS and ECMWF.

Vlieland, an island off the northern Dutch coast, where the storm made the first of its two landfalls in the Netherlands, experienced wind gusts up to 144 km/h (89 mph).

Moving on, the winter storm rampaged in Germany, disrupting public transport services as it already did in the Benelux and causing ten deaths on 18 January.

During the evening of 18 January, the eastward moving centre of David crossed the Polish border and weakened to 985 hPa (29.1 inHg).

Beginning on 16 January, prior to David's arrival, the very deep and large arctic low Fionn battered the British isles with high winds.

Storm conditions also occurred in other parts of Western and Central Europe in the middle of January 2018 (even affecting Corsica).

[31]Germany received the worst impacts by the cyclone that crossed the country on a track from Lower Saxony to Southern Brandenburg on 18 January.

The main wind field on the southern side of the storm led to widespread gusts up to 133 km/h (83 mph) over a region ranging from North Rhine-Westphalia to Saxony.

As a preliminary total, 15 deaths (13 direct and 2 indirect) and 471,000 power outages are known to have occurred Europe-wide due to the effects of the storm.

Prior to the arrival on 17 January the cyclone received the names David by Météo France and Friederike by the Free University of Berlin.

Contrastingly, the DWD (German Meteorological Office) took David seriously and classified it a major windstorm (Orkan)[53] for its widespread hurricane-force (Bft.