A New Year washout (but not in London)

New Year celebrations across the country were ruined last night after many events were cancelled because of the approaching storms.

See pictures of people celebrating New Year across the globe

Parties in Edinburgh, Newcastle upon Tyne, Glasgow, Belfast and Liverpool were all abandoned as forecasters predicted rain and 80mph winds.

The cancellations followed a weekend of downpours and gales which led to several deaths and widespread damage.

In Edinburgh, organisers of the country's biggest New Year celebration threw in the towel with only three hours to go before midnight.

The Hogmanay party can attract up to 100,000 revellers and earlier in the evening city officials had confidently announced they could cope 'with the extremes of Scottish weather'.

Events in other city centres involving fireworks, electrical equipment and temporary stages were also being prepared for last-minute cancellation.

Many of those that went ahead were a damp squib as crowds stayed away from lashing rain and winds.

Liverpool cancelled its party as early as Friday because of the predicted storms and warnings from weathermen put paid to Newcastle's celebrations.

They were to have featured illuminated buildings, fireworks, dancers and a DJ, but Stella Hall, creative director of the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative said it would have been too dangerous to go ahead.

'Once the wind goes above 30mph putting on a show like this can be difficult, and the Met Office predicted the wind would be at between 35 and 40 mph by 6pm and would continue to rise.

'It would not be safe to set off fireworks in winds like that.'

Around 25,000 revellers had been expected at Glasgow's George Square, to watch bands and fireworks, but a spokesman for the city council urged partygoers to stay away from the area following a weather warning.

In London, however, Mayor Ken Livingstone said firework displays in the capital would go ahead, while warning travellers to be prepared for last-minute changes.

A New Year's Day parade was also due to go ahead, with up to 400,000 expected to watch the event, starting at Parliament Square.

MeteoGroup UK forecaster Jeremy Plester said the stormy weather would continue from New Year's Eve.

He added: 'Monday will be a draughty day with showers across much of western Britain but there is a much better chance of it being brighter.'

At the weekend a girl of 15 escaped with only a few bruises after a bolt of lightning sent 300,000 volts surging through her metal bedframe.

The lightning ripped a hole in the roof of Sophie Wiltshire's home and brought the bedroom ceiling in.

Experts said she would almost certainly have died had it not been for rubber stops on the feet of her bed which prevented the electricity from earthing. She was bruised by falling plaster and had a mild asthma attack triggered by the shock.

Her mother Judy, 48, said: 'It's the worst start to the New Year I could imagine - we've been so unlucky - but we were just glad to all get out alive.'

Mrs Wiltshire and her four children - Tom, 22, Kim, 21, Sophie and 14-year-old Gina - were all in bed at the family's fivebedroom detached home in the village of Elberton, near Bristol, when the lightning struck at 12.20am. Her husband Clive, 51, a property developer, was watching TV.

The blast carved a 5ft-wide hole in the roof, destroying timber, masonry and tiles. The family will have to stay with neighbours for several weeks.

Rebecca Smith, 18, was killed when a 60ft tree crashed down on a mobile home in Cheadle, Staffordshire.

Rebecca, from Stoke- on-Trent, had been staying in the Hales Hall Caravan Park with two friends, a young couple, who escaped with minor injuries.

The severe weather had already claimed the lives of two American sailors who were swept overboard as their submarine left Plymouth on Friday.

A man of 26 was feared drowned after being swept into the sea from rocks near Padstow, in Cornwall.

He was walking on the beach with 14 friends when he was dragged into the water by a freak wave. Several members of the party tried in vain to help. A Royal Navy helicopter from Culdrose and the Padstow lifeboat also failed to find him.

On Dartmoor, a man of 32 and woman of 19 went missing in atrocious weather. They were eventually rescued at 5.30am on Saturday and airlifted to safety.

Later that day a hotel had half its metal roof blown off by a tornado only five hours after it opened. The 80-room Days Inn Hotel, in Haverhill, Suffolk, was battered by 80mph winds. The three staff on duty and the four guests were all uninjured.

Thousands of planks of wood were mysteriously washed up on the South Coast, between Poole in Dorset and Newhaven in East Sussex.

In the Midlands a strike over pay by hundreds of senior train conductors forced Central Trains to axe two thirds of its services. The company said it would also restrict services to 'key routes'.