LONDON: Extreme winter weather is continuing to batter Europe. In Germany, cold, ice and snow are severely hampering road and air traffic.
Frankfurt airport, Germany's biggest, has already cancelled over 200 flights. Police in France closed the A5 motorway going to Germany causing extensive traffic jams. The German authorities are advising people to stock up on food and drink ahead of major blizzards.
Air traffic in France has also been badly affected by ongoing snowfall. Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris expects to cancel a fourth of its flights. Toulouse airport was closed all morning. Around 15,000 homes in southern France are still without electricity.
Britain is experiencing its coldest winter in decades, with more heavy snowfall expected over the weekend. Most Premier League football matches have been postponed as a result.
It has even snowed on the Spanish Mediterranean island of Mallorca. Parts of northwestern Spain are covered by up to 35 centimetres of snow.
The cold weather bringing chaos to Britain has also caused problems across large areas of Europe.
But it was not bad news for everyone. Sledge makers reported a boom in sales after years of fearing they had become victims of global warming.
"There hasn't been a run on sleds like this one since at least 25 years," said Michael Ress, owner of a factory in Schwebheim, Germany.
His eight staff are working at maximum capacity, putting together 100 beech-wood sledges a day. The entire forthcoming production of this season's 3,000 sledges, which sell for £35, has already been taken in advance.
"We're running out of supplies," said Ress, adding that he was forced to order certain metal parts from Asia because his usual German suppliers were out of stock.
In France, snow piled up from Normandy to Marseille on the Mediterranean shore. Almost 12 inches of snow fell on Arles and Avignon in southern France.
Stay home and stay out of your cars, the top official in France's Drome region urged residents. Snowstorms cut electricity to thousands of homes. A dozen flights were cancelled out of Marseille-Provence airport in southern France.
Much of Spain was also shivering. A nature park in the normally temperate Murcia region in the south-east turned on heaters at a pen housing three giraffes more accustomed to warmer climes. In the Catalonia region centred on Barcelona snow prevented 72 schools from reopening after the Christmas vacation, providing an extra day off for more than 16,000 children.
Heavy rains caused flooding across central and southern Italy, and authorities in Rome are watching the rising level of the Tiber. Northern Italy was blanketed by snow, while Venice faced the "acqua alta" phenomenon - exceptionally high tides which often flood most of the lagoon city in winter.
In Sweden, temperatures dropped to -38.7C, straining the country's energy supplies. Heavy snow forced the Czech Republic to close two busy border crossings to trucks - one with Germany and the other one with Slovakia.
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