On 15–16 October 2017, ex-hurricane Ophelia passed to the West of the British Isles, bringing dust from the Sahara and smoke from Portuguese forest fires that was observable to the naked eye and reported in the national press. We report here detailed observations of this event using the UK operational lidar and sun-photometer network, established for the early detection of aviation hazards. The observations, taken continuously over a period of 30 hours, show a complex picture, dominated by several aerosol layers at different times, and clearly correlated with the passage of different air-masses associated with the intense cyclonic system. A similar evolution was observed at several sites, with a time delay between them explained by their different location with respect to the storm. The event commenced with a hallow dust layer at 1–2 km in altitude, and culminated in a deep and complex structure that lasted 12 hours at each site, correlated with the storm’s warm sector. For most of the time, the aerosol detected as mineral dust, as highlighted by depolarisation measurements, but an intense smoke layer was observed towards the end of the event, lasting around 3 hours at each site. The aerosol optical depth AOD) during the whole event ranged from 0.2 to 2.9, with the larger AOD correlated to the intense smoke plume. Such a large AOD is unprecedented in the United Kingdom according to AERONET records or the last 20 years. The Raman lidars permitted the measurement of the aerosol extinction coefficient at 355 nm, the particle depolarisation ratio (PDR) and the lidar ratio (LR), and made possible the separation of the dust (depolarising) aerosol from other aerosol types. A specific extinction has also been computed to provide an estimate of the atmospheric concentration of both aerosols separately, which peaked at 500 ± 100 μg m −3 for the dust and 600 ± 100 μg m −3 for the smoke. Back-trajectories computed using the Numerical Atmospheric dispersion Modelling Environment (NAME) were used to identify the sources and strengthen the conclusions drawn from the observations. The UK network represents a significant expansion of the observing capability in Northern Europe, with instruments evenly distributed across Great Britain, from Camborne in Cornwall to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, and this study represents the first attempt to demonstrate its capability and validate the methods in use. Its ultimate purpose will be the detection and quantification of volcanic plumes, but the present study clearly demonstrates the advanced capabilities of the network.