The ferocious weather produced some of the strongest gales since the last great storm in in Britain in 1987 which came just days before one of the heaviest market crashes in post-war history.

The mood in London was correspondingly gloomy and the FTSE 100 index shed 34.0 points, 0.5 per cent in early deals to 6,332.5 points.

Paris was similarly under the weather, but the CAC 40 index managed to pare early losses to stand at 6,260.5 points, down 0.1 per cent, by midmorning.

Germany did not escape the meteorological fury, and volumes were low as the DAX index slid 0.2 per cent to 6,911.09 points.

The euro meanwhile was clawing back ground towards 85 cents at 0.8464 dollars.

But the oil market failed to open at all on Monday, amid a dearth of traders at London's International Petroleum Exchange."

There are not enough people for the pit opening (and) we are not sure either if there are enough people for the IT staff," said an exchange spokeswoman." Because of the weather conditions, people are having trouble getting in," she added.

The traders that did make it to their desks on Monday were selling insurance stocks, amid fears of a big pay-out from the devastation wrought by gale force winds. Prudential fell 1.7 per cent to 902 pence, while Royal Sun lost 3.5 percent to 474.75 pence.

Elsewhere the market took note of Friday's movements on Wall Street, which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average gain another two per cent while the Nasdaq composite moved sideways.

Asian markets were shorn of inspiration, Tokyo stocks closing 0.8 per cent lower while the Hong Kong market fell 0.7 per cent.

But there was a welter of corporate news to digest. Telecoms stocks were again active, with BT racking up early gains only to slip back below its closing value of 783 pence as the market gave its verdict on press reports that the telecoms behemoth plans to announce a major restructuring, possibly including the sale of its stake in Cegetel to Vodafone.

Vodafone gained 0.6 percent to 284.75 pence.

Telecoms equipment companies were still struggling after last week's alarming warnings from US-quoted companies. Marconi fell 0.4 percent to 850 pence, while Alcatel slipped three percent to 71.30 euros.

Cable and Wireless meanwhile fell 2.3 per cent to 957 pence after announcing plans to build a 1.4-billion-dollar nationwide fibre-optic network in Japan. In the aviation sector, Dutch airline KLM soared more than six percent to 20.15 euros after announcing a 55-percent jump in pre-exceptional profits for the first half. BA cashed in on the good news, gaining 3.7 percent to 274.75 pence.

Airport manager BAA gained 2.1 per cent to 576 pence after reporting a five-percent jump in its own pre-tax profit, a result which it said demonstrated that it had overcome the challenge of the abolition of duty-free shopping for intra-EU travel. British food group AB Foods fell almost one percent to 394.5 pence after it said it had sold its biscuit and sugar confectionary business to Hick, Muse, Tate and Furst for 130 million pounds.