UK Weather Online

Archive for November, 2010

Eight people died of exposure in Poland, three in the Czech Republic and two in Lithuania, officials said yesterday.

And in the UK, two died in accidents blamed on the weather – one in a motorcycle crash and the other after falling into a freezing lake.

In some parts of Germany temperatures dropped to as low as minus18C, while heavy rain in Italy triggered the collapse of two Roman walls in Pompeii and flooding in Venice.

Albania proclaimed a state of natural disaster in the north with more than 200 people evacuated from one region as hundreds of homes were flooded.

Transport chaos hit the whole of the continent, and Britain – shivering in the coldest December 1 on record in one of the earliest snowfalls – was one of the worst affected.

Insurance companies estimated that the big freeze is costing the UK economy up to £1.2 billion ($1.87 billion) a day. Shops, restaurants and bars were the worst hit and more than 1500 schools were also forced to close.

London’s Gatwick Airport – one of Europe’s busiest passenger hubs – said it would remain shut until at least 10am local time (9pm AEDT) today as staff worked to clear the runways.

Edinburgh Airport was also shut, with delays reported at Glasgow and Aberdeen, as well as Newcastle in northeast England and Jersey in the Channel Islands.

About a third of all UK rail services also either suffered delays or cancellations at midday yesterday.

Eurostar, which operates high-speed passenger trains linking London to Paris and Brussels, advised passengers to postpone travel today if not essential.

“Due to the current weather conditions, Eurostar will be operating a significantly reduced timetable on Thursday 2 December, with a number of cancellations,” a statement on the website said.

“In addition, Eurostar services will be subject to delays of up to 90 minutes.”

Heavy snowfall also shut Geneva International Airport where 100 stranded passengers had to spend the night in the terminal. With hotels fully booked, about 200 more were sheltered by authorities.

Switzerland’s biggest airport at Zurich was still operating, although 70 flights had been cancelled because of bad weather at other airports.

At Germany’s Frankfurt hub, 153 flights were cancelled and a further 250 cancelled at Munich.

Around Paris, authorities asked airlines to cancel 25 per cent of their flights at Roissy airport and 10 per cent at Orly because of expected snowfalls.

French roads fared no better with 17,200 trucks abandoning their journeys.

Part of the motorway orbiting London was shut and there were severe delays on north-south routes, while serious accidents were reported on the main road between Prague and the eastern Czech city of Brno.

In Italy snowfalls also disrupted traffic in city centres and on motorways in the northern Lombardy and Piedmont regions, and in Spain school transport services were disrupted by heavy snow in northern and central regions.

A 35 year old hillwalker has escaped with only minor injuries after falling 1000 feet down a mountainside in the Grey Corries. The climber, who was 35 and from Glasgow, was part of a group of hillwalkers.

He fell from near the summit of Sgurr Choinnich Mor in the Grey Corries at around 2pm yesterday. He had struck the hillside on the way down, scattering some of his gear and passing three rocky outcrops. The rescuers – on HMS Gannet’s Sea King Helicopter – arrived within half an hour from a training mission, and after seeing a man standing up and reading his map at the foot of the slope, initially assumed he was not the man they were searching for.

“It seemed impossible. So we retraced our path back up the mountain and, sure enough, there were bits of his kit in a vertical line all the way up where he had obviously lost them during the fall,” said Lieutenant Tim Barker.

“It was quite incredible. He must have literally glanced off the outcrops as he fell, almost flying.”

Paramedics lowered to the man found he had suffered only a minor chest injury and cuts and bruises.

“He was shaking from extreme emotional shock and the sheer relief at still being alive.

The casualty was then transferred to Glasgow Southern General Hospital.