Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in Storm Boelo sees flights and ferries cancelled and multiple A roads closed Maryam Zakir-Hussain , Shweta Sharma & Dan Haygarth Sunday 25 October 2026 11:29 GMT Bookmark popover Removed from bookmarks Close popover Storm Boelo leaves Scottish high street under floodwater Storm Boelo has caused widespread disruption across the UK, leaving thousands of homes without power and delaying more than 1,500 flights.
The Met Office issued amber severe weather warnings for northern England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Transport services have been heavily impacted, with cancelled ferries, train disruptions, and several major A roads closed due to fallen trees and power lines. Peak wind speeds reached 82mph on the island of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides early on Sunday morning. Scotland's environmental agency has issued 29 flood warnings and 11 flood alerts due to heavy rain and powerful winds.
In full Storm Boelo latest: Thousands without power and hundreds of flights cancelled as 80mph winds batter UK
The Independent reports Storm Boelo's disruption: power cuts, flight and ferry cancellations, closed roads, a flooded high street and 29 flood warnings for heavy rain. It never says that warming makes heavy rainfall like this more intense, so a reader takes the flooding as weather with no link to climate change.
Leaves out the climate link
Serious
“29 flood warnings and 11 flood alerts due to heavy rain and powerful winds”
Why this matters
The Independent puts the flood warnings down to "heavy rain and powerful winds" and stops there.
The impression it gives
A reader comes away thinking the heavy rain behind the flood warnings is simply a storm. Nothing in it connects to a warming climate.
The context
Human-caused warming has made heavy rainfall more frequent and more intense. The article has no word for climate or warming anywhere, so even a single line of that context is missing.
How we know
On the recordThat warming has made hot extremes, heavy rainfall, agricultural and ecological drought, fire weather and intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
Checked against the whole articleIt never uses the words “climate” and “warming”.
“Storm Boelo leaves Scottish high street under floodwater”
Why this matters
The Independent reports a Scottish high street under floodwater, harm that has already happened. It gives the flooding only as a storm event.
The impression it gives
A reader sees the flooded high street as a one-off result of a named storm, with no wider cause.
The context
Warming is making the heavy rainfall that floods streets like this more likely and more severe. The article reports the damage but never says so.
How we know
On the recordThat warming has made hot extremes, heavy rainfall, agricultural and ecological drought, fire weather and intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
Elsewhere in the article“due to heavy rain and powerful winds”
Scotland's environmental agency has issued 29 flood warnings and 11 flood alerts due to heavy rain and powerful winds. Climate change is making heavy rainfall like this more intense.