At Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, 400 flights were cancelled earlier in the day, with airline Air France-KLM saying that chemicals used to de-ice aircraft were running low.

The Dutch national rail operator NS said that there were no trains running at all until 10:00 am (0900 GMT) with services resuming only sporadically afterwards. In the Amsterdam area traffic remained very limited, the operator said.

In Utrecht, transport companies cancelled all buses in the region until Wednesday morning, due to slippery conditions.

On the roads, fewer traffic jams were reported than the previous day, as many employees heeded official calls to work from home.

Authorities counted approximately 300 kilometres (200 miles) of traffic jams, compared to an average of 475 kilometres on regular Tuesday mornings. For Wednesday, it advised people to "avoid travelling unless absolutely necessary".

The universities of Rotterdam and Utrecht also postponed scheduled exams and switched to online classes.

According to the Dutch Meteorological Institute, more snowfall was expected Wednesday.

bur/spm/rmb

Air France-KLM