never before has a red weather warning applied across the whole of the irish republic and northern irelandangor in county down, this leisure centre took a huge hit. houses in whiteabbey, near belfast, suffered damage. it's become a frequent scenario during the storms of recent years. the tree went through the conservatory a few years ago. last year during some storms, again, substantial damage to the roof. and again this year. so yeah, a recurring problem. nobody seems to want to know. or have anything to do with it. there was a sense of helplessness in the places which experienced the worst of the winds. the dangerous, violent gales passed in a few hours, but across the island of ireland, storm eowyn has left a deep, long lasting and costly mark. chris page, bbc news. today's exceptional winds are being driven by a phenomenon known as a sting jet — our weather presenter chris fawkes is here to explain. this has been an exceptionally powerful storm. widespread problems as we have seen. the fifth named storm of the season, and we can see it here in western scotland, the strongest wind was i