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Cold snap hits Europe, disrupting travel

Mark Hallam (with AFP, dpa, Reuters)
06/01/2026 17:26:00
The Marschbahndamm in Hamburg is typically a popular bike and walking trail, but some opted for skis on Tuesday Christian Ohde/CHROMORANGE/picture alliance
It was only a slight smattering, but it's rare for King Felipe VI (second from right) and other Spanish royals ever to encounter snow in Madrid Europa Press/ABACA/abaca/picture alliance

Netherlands

More than 400 flights were canceled at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport on Tuesday, already hit by several days of major disruptions with the Netherlands among the worst affected by recent snowfalls in Europe.

"We haven't experienced such extreme weather conditions in years," a spokesperson for the Dutch KLM ‌arm of Air France-KLM, Anoesjka ⁠Aspeslagh, told Reuters.

Amsterdam's Schipol Airport also saw disruption due to wintry conditions Ramon van Flymen/ANP/picture alliance

Early on Tuesday, all domestic rail services were suspended in the Netherlands, because of an IT outage exacerbating the problems like frozen points already caused by the adverse weather.

This further compounded existing travel difficulties by air and on the roads, particularly in the busy area around Amsterdam, where problems persisted for longer than in the rest of the country.

France

High-speed Eurostar trains from Amsterdam to Paris, bound eventually for the UK, were either canceled or running late.

The French capital remained caked in a layer of snow after a fairly heavy snowfall on Monday evening, including for the Ukraine Coalition of the Willing summit hosted by President Emmanuel Macron.

Paris has seen several days of snow early in January Xavier Francolon/SIPA/picture alliance

French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot urged people to travel as little as possible on the ​roads and to work from home, with domestic media reporting five traffic accident deaths in crashes linked to the weather.

Germany

Snows affected almost every corner of the country on Tuesday, from Berlin in the east to Bonn in the west and from Hamburg to the north to Stuttgart down south.

In Berlin, several thousand households and around 1,000 businesses in the southwest of the city were still without heating and electricity after a sabotage attack on power cables over the weekend.

Freezing temperatures are nothing new in the German capital in winter, but for residents without power in the southwest the cold snap's timing is poor David Gannon/AFP

There were accidents on highways and roads in the poor weather, and some delays to trains and planes, but disruption was comparatively minimal compared to several nearby countries.

UK

Schools were shut for a second day in much of Scotland, which had faced some of the heavier snows across the UK in recent days.

Some London narrowboats were more securely moored than usual on Tuesday morning Frank Augstein/AP Photo/picture alliance

The UK Meteorological Office said winter hazards would continue throughout the week for most of the country. Canals in the capital London were frozen over.

Marham, in Norfolk in southeast England, clocked overnight lows of -12.5 degrees Celsius (9.5 Fahrenheit) heading into Tuesday, the lowest anywhere in the UK to date this winter.

The coastal fortification Bamburgh Castle in northeast England was one of many places blanketed in overnight snows Owen Humphreys/AP Photo/picture alliance
by DW