Today's Edition
BERLIN (DPA)
Snow and freezing conditions have shut down rail and air travel, led to long motorway tailbacks, and closed schools across Europe as a cold wave that struck the continent over the weekend persisted into Tuesday.
Dutch train services were brought to an almost complete standstill on Tuesday morning, and hundreds of flights at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport were cancelled.
In France, school buses stopped running, and train services were disrupted in some regions. Flights were cancelled in Paris and in Nantes in the west.
Tailbacks in the Paris region were reported to have reached a total of 1,000 kilometers on Monday afternoon, with conditions easing slightly into Tuesday. Five road deaths were reported.
In the United Kingdom, hundreds of schools remained closed in Scotland. The weather service predicted heavy snow for the south of the country through the rest of the week.
Temperatures plunged to minus 40 degrees Celsius in northern Sweden on Tuesday, while the Danish authorities urged people in North Jutland to stay at home on Wednesday in anticipation of a snowstorm.
In Switzerland, La Brévine in Neuchâtel, traditionally the coldest settlement at an altitude of more than 1,000 metres, reported minus 30.3 degrees Celsius at the start of the week. The Alp Hintergräppelen highland in St Gallen posted minus 37.1 degrees Celsius.
Czech weather authorities predicted temperatures would remain below zero throughout the country over coming days, with minus 25 degrees Celsius recorded near the border with Germany on Tuesday.
In Prague, tens of thousands were without heating or hot water after the district heating pipe failed. Temperatures plunged as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius in Poland.
In Spain, where many homes are poorly equipped to deal with the cold, snow and freezing conditions were recorded in Madrid and the higher parts of Mallorca. The weather service forecast temperatures plunging to minus 10 degrees Celsius.
By contrast, temperatures were unusually high in south-eastern Bulgaria at 19 degrees, but the weather service was predicting snow and a cold front from Thursday.
