Since the mercury dropped on Monday, five people have died in France and one woman in Bosnia as heavy snow and rain sparked floods and power outages across the Balkans.
Paris's two main airports, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and Orly, were to cancel many flights early Wednesday to allow ground crews to clear snow from runways and de-ice planes.
Forty percent of morning flights at Charles de Gaulle were to be scrapped, and 25 percent at Orly.
In Britain, temperatures plunged to -12.5C overnight Monday-Tuesday in Norfolk, eastern England, while temperatures below -10C across the Netherlands brought trains to a standstill on Tuesday morning.
"Last night was the coldest night of the winter so far," Britain's Met Office said, with nearly all of the United Kingdom on alert for snow and ice and more snowfall expected.
With the chill making roads perilous, three people died in accidents linked to black ice in southwestern France on Monday morning, authorities said, while a taxi driver died in hospital on Monday night after his vehicle veered off the road and plunged into the Marne river in the Paris region.
His passenger was still being treated for hypothermia, according to a police source. Another driver died east of Paris on Monday after colliding with a heavy goods vehicle.
Melanie Coligneaux, a pastry chef, said that she left her home in Beny-Bocage in northwestern France at 5:00 am (0400 GMT) to avoid the worst of the snow-day traffic.
"The roads are bad, so we don't want to damage the car or even have an accident," the 30-year-old told AFP.
Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, the Netherlands' main flight hub, meanwhile saw a second day of weather-driven cancellations Tuesday, with at least 600 flights grounded and travellers facing huge queues at the airline counters.
Dutch airline KLM, which is responsible for removing ice from most aircraft at Schiphol, warned that it had nearly run out of de-icing fluid, blaming the "extreme" weather conditions and supply delays.
Trains from the Dutch national railway operator NS only began rolling again after 10:00 am (0900 GMT), with services limited afterwards.
But planes got off the ground again from Liverpool in northwest England and Aberdeen in northeast Scotland, after the cold had forced both airports to close on Monday.
- 'Like climbing Mont Blanc' -
After nearly 40 centimetres (16 inches) fell in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo at the weekend, a woman died in hospital after being hit by a tree that collapsed under the weight of the snow on Monday, according to the police.
Dozens of villages across neighbouring Serbia were left without power in the wake of the snowfall, while downpours caused several rivers to overflow in Bosnia and forced the evacuation of dozens of homes in Albania.
More than 300 schools were shut in Scotland Tuesday, the national BBC broadcaster reported, with Scottish train services also severely disrupted.
"Tuesday will bring more severe snow and ice to the north of Scotland -- and with it, continued travel disruption and risks to people and communities," Scottish transport minister Fiona Hyslop warned late on Monday.
Christopher Sallent, a resident of Saint-Jean-des-Essartiers in France's Normandy, said his children also had to stay at home as the school buses were not running.
"It's difficult, we have to adapt. When will the school buses start running again? We don't know... We have to keep them at home and keep them occupied," the 33-year-old told AFPTV.
Several smaller French airports were closed on Tuesday, according to the transport ministry.
In the French capital, Monday's snowfall had settled overnight across much of Paris's pavements, with pedestrians forced to navigate treacherously icy streets.
Tour guide Valeria Pitchouguina said the sight of Paris snowed under was "truly extraordinary", but the ice was complicating efforts to shepherd her groups up the steep steps to the picture-postcard district of Montmartre.
"When it's like that and snowy and icy, it's something else, it's less like climbing Montmartre and more like climbing Mont Blanc," Pitchouguina told AFPTV.
Hungary meanwhile also braced for a second day of fresh snowfall Tuesday, with some roads and railways already impassable, especially in the northeast.
Construction and Transport Minister Janos Lazar urged Hungarians to only head out "if absolutely necessary".
One dead as snow and rain cause floods, power cuts in Balkans
Zagreb (AFP) Jan 6, 2026 -
Snow and heavy rains caused power failures and flooding in parts of the Balkans, authorities said Tuesday, with one woman killed in a weather-related accident in Bosnia.
A woman died in hospital in Sarajevo after being hit by a tree that collapsed Monday under the weight of the 40 centimetres (16 inches) of snow that fell over the weekend on the Bosnian capital, police said.
Dozens of villages across neighbouring Serbia were left without power, with the state-run RTS broadcaster reporting that the authorities had declared states of emergencies in parts of the west.
In the capital Belgrade, heavy weekend snowfall brought down trees and branches onto parked cars, and the Serbian weather service warned of even more for several regions for Wednesday.
Heavy rainfall caused several rivers around Mostar in southern Bosnia to overflow, while in the east of the country, authorities declared a state of emergency in the Zvornik area due to the rising water levels of the Drina river.
In Blagaj, near Mostar, the Buna river went up by 2.18 metres (more than seven feet) overnight, the highest since measurements began in 1923, official figures showed.
"In just one day, the water level rose by a metre and a half, you could literally see it rising," Salko Golos, owner of a riverside restaurant, part of which was flooded, told AFP.
"There is some damage, but lives are what matter... everything else can be fixed," he added.
Downpours also hit Albania, where dozens of homes were evacuated, as well as Kosovo and Montenegro.
Snow disrupts Dutch air, rail and road traffic
Rotterdam, Netherlands (AFP) Jan 6, 2026 -
Hundreds of flights were grounded in the Netherlands on Tuesday, and trains and buses were cancelled across the country, as travellers faced another day of delay and disruption caused by unusually heavy snowfall.
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.
Snow, cold snap in UK, France triggers school, travel disruptions
London (AFP) Jan 5, 2026 -
Snow and ice forced hundreds of schools to shut in the UK and badly disrupted travel across the country and neighbouring France on Monday, grounding flights in some of the coldest weather of the winter so far.
The UK's Met Office issued fresh amber weather warnings for Monday and Tuesday for snow and ice for Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of northern England and said cold weather health alerts for all English regions would remain in place until Friday.
The disruption follows a cold snap in recent days in the UK.
Temperatures dropped to a low of -10.9C in the high hills of Shap in Cumbria, northwest England, on Sunday night.
There was then heavy snowfall in some regions, with Tomintoul, near Inverness in northeast Scotland, recording the highest amount, 52 centimetres (20 inches), as of 10:00 am (1000 GMT) on Monday.
"Overnight into Tuesday temperatures will once again fall below freezing for much of the country, with the lowest temperatures over lying snow possibly dipping to -12C," the Met Office said.
A total of 212 schools were closed in Northern Ireland on Monday, the authorities said, with dozens of schools also shut in Scotland, Wales and northern England.
Flights were cancelled at airports including Liverpool in northwest England, Aberdeen and Inverness in northeast Scotland, and Belfast in Northern Ireland.
At France's major Paris airports of Charles de Gaulle and Orly, heavy snowfall forced airlines to reduce their flights by 15 percent.
Some 250 snowploughs were on standby at the two airports, French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot told a press conference, adding there would likely be "cancellations and some delays".
Local, regional and international railways across the UK were also affected.
In Paris, snow disrupted the bus network on Monday afternoon and roads, particularly in the northwest Normandy region as well as in the French capital, were badly affected with long tailbacks.
The Eurostar train service linking the UK to the European mainland advised passengers travelling between London and the Netherlands to postpone their journeys as services could not operate beyond Brussels due to the weather in the Netherlands.
British railway authorities meanwhile deployed snowploughs in Scotland to try to clear tracks hit by heavy snow.
In Scotland, the police cautioned road users not to try to drive through closed roads.
The UK's roadside assistance provider, the AA, said there had been a 40 percent spike in callouts compared to a typical Monday.
Belfast Zoo remained closed due to the weather conditions on Monday, while snow, ice or low temperature warnings were in place across neighbouring Ireland.
Related Links
It's A White Out at TerraDaily.com
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
