Wildest UK weather of 2021 - in pictures

The last of thousands of homes left without electricity after Storm Arwen have finally been reconnected to the power grid just as the UK braces for another battering from extreme weather.

Engineers “made a final push on Sunday to restore power to the remaining 30 or so” of a total 135,000 properties in the northeast that were cut off after Arwen hit on 26 November, The Independent reported. Trees felled by winds of up to 98mph damaged power lines and killed three people during what Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) described as the “once in a generation” weather event.

Arwen has also been linked to the death of a person whose home in the Northumberland town of Rothbury was “without heating for a week amid ice warnings”, reported The Mirror. In a Facebook post, local councillor Steven Bridgett said the unnamed person had “underlying health conditions but we believe the lack of power/heating may have been a contributing factor”.

And now the UK is facing further potentially devastating damage as another storm moves in from the Atlantic today. The Met Office issued multiple weather warnings for snow, ice, rain and wind across most of the UK, including Northern Ireland, as Storm Barra made landfall.

Here are some of the many other wild weather events that have caused chaos throughout the nation since 2021 began.