Britain, US and Europe crippled by deep freeze

IRELAND escaped lightly from great blasts of snow, ice and freezing temperatures that wrought havoc across Britain and much of Europe and the US yesterday.

Conditions on roads in Britain were treacherous, while many train travellers had to contend with delays and cancellations.

Only the south-west of England and central London escaped the snow, which was more than five inches deep in some areas.

In Scotland there were heavy snowfalls and blizzard conditions with drifting, while there was also plenty of snow in eastern, northern and north-eastern England.

Although the south-east escaped the worst of the weather, Tube chiefs appeared to be caught unprepared, despite the fact that severe conditions had been predicted up to a week ago.

Consequently, the “open-air” parts of the London underground suffered severe problems during today’s rush-hour, with no services at all on sections of the Metropolitan, Jubilee, Piccadilly and Central lines.

Passengers arrived at stations to find there were no trains. They then had to battle the biting cold to find alternative routes into London.

Some who switched to main-line trains found themselves facing delays there too. A Weather Centre spokeswoman said: “Temperatures in Scotland will struggle to get above freezing and it will be about 1-4ºC elsewhere.

“It will be very cold tonight and there will be a severe frost almost everywhere. But tomorrow, England and Wales should be fine and sunny, and less windy. The good news is that it will be milder by the weekend.”

In France, a snowstorm and fog in the Paris area sparked delays at the Paris Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports as most of northen, central and eastern Europe shivered under Arctic temperatures.

In the US, snowfall tapered off somewhat yesterday as crews continued to plough through snow ice from a storm that closed schools for more than a million youngsters and tied up air travel.

Motorists expecting to confront deep snow in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts mostly found roads slippery but passable.

Up to 10 inches of snow fell in northeastern New Jersey, but only about another inch or so during the day, the National Weather Service said.

The snow was the latest headache from a series of storms that had spread snow and ice over parts of the eastern half of the nation since the weekend. Ice in Georgia and the Carolinas knocked out electrical service to hundreds of thousands of customers on Tuesday, and slippery roads closed schools, businesses and some government offices from the plains to the coast.

At least 50 deaths have been blamed on snow, ice and cold from Kansas to the east coast this week.

Classes were cancelled in many school districts in New England and the middle Atlantic region, including schools in New York City, the nation’s largest system with 1.1 million students. For thousands of Maryland children, it was the third consecutive day off as crews cleaned roads.

However, the storm didn’t live up to expectations. Of the 13 inches forecast overnight at Albany, New York, only 3.4 inches fell.

Hundreds of flights had been cancelled since Tuesday at Newark Liberty International Airport, where nine inches of snow fell. More than 100 flights were cancelled and dozens delayed at La Guardia Airport, and delays and cancellations were also expected at Kennedy International, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.

New York city got eight inches in Central Park. The city has already spent 17 million on snow removal this season, some 1m more than it budgeted, and has used 250,000 tons of salt, officials said.

The weather was blamed for seven deaths in North Carolina; six in South Carolina; five each in Iowa and Missouri; four in Ohio; three each in Nebraska, Virginia, Minnesota and Maryland; two each in Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma; and one each in Kansas, New Jersey and West Virginia. Most of the deaths were in traffic accidents.