Severe winter weather has disrupted travel across Europe today as airports at cities including London remain shut and Eurostar trains operate a limited service amid heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures.
London's Gatwick airport, the Britain's second busiest, will remain closed until at least 6am local time tomorrow, while. Edinburgh airport and London Ciy airports are due to open its runway at 12pm.
The earliest widespread snowfall in Britain since 1993 has frozen over roads, disrupting traffic, with freezing weather likely to last until at least December 8th, according to British Weather Services.
Temperatures are expected to drop as low as minus 14 degrees in northwest Scotland this morning, while London and southeast England will see temperatures of about minus 3 degrees, the Met Office said.
Around 200 drivers spent a second night sleeping in their vehicles or at a nearby village hall in the northern county of Yorkshire while passengers on a train to the south coast resort of Brighton had to sleep in the carriages, the BBC reported.
Thousands of schools were expected to remain closed, some for the fourth day in a row.
Eurostar, which runs high-speed trains between London, Paris and Brussels, cancelled seven of its services between London and Paris for today. The company usually operates as many as 18 daily services between London and Paris.
Southern Railways, which operates commuter services from southeast England into London, said it had cancelled all trains because of adverse weather.
In addition to the cancellations, speed restrictions on lines in both Britain and northern France will create delays of as much as 90 minutes, Eurostar said in a statement on its website.
London temperatures may decline as low as minus 6 degrees on December 3rd from yesterday's minus 5 degrees. The minimum averaged 7 degrees above zero over the past 10 years, the data show.
Severe winter weather has hit the Czech Republic, closing Prague's airport overnight and forcing other public transport to operate limited services amid freezing temperatures that have left at least one person dead.
At Prague's international airport, Letiste Praha, about 40 flights were cancelled during an overnight closure that ended at 5am today.
Transportation in Prague and train services across the country remain limited. Heavy snowfall caused accidents and closures on the main highways connecting the capital with Brno, the second-largest Czech city, and Pilsen.
At least one person was found dead because of the freezing weather, CTK reported. Temperatures may drop to as low as minus 20 degrees tonight in some parts of the country.
Some parts of Prague had about 11cm of new snow in the last 24 hours, Dvorak said. Around the Ruzyne neighbourhood, where the airport is located, the snow is as deep as 29cm, he said.
In the Netherlands, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport cancelled 20 flights today as airports in other countries were closed due to the weather, spokeswoman. Schiphol airport itself isn't affected by the snow.
Reporting: Reuters/Bloomberg