Ice storms

Hundreds of drivers have been stranded on the main Athens to Thessaloniki highway, as a snow storm hit central Greece, on Friday./ thegreekreporter

According to reports, traffic came to a standstill about 100 km north of Athens, just north of Lake Yliki.

A 14 km long jam formed, as thousands of Athenians were travelling north for the Christmas holidays.

Heavy snowfall in the mountains of the northern Peloponnese on Friday caused numerous problems on the rural road network.

On the Pounta-Kalavryta road, a tour bus carrying 34 passengers and a number of cars were forced to halt for several hours in heavy snowfall as they waited for conditions to clear and allow them to continue their journeys safely.

Several parts of northern Greece, as well as higher altitudes in the central mainland saw snowfall on Tuesday, as temperatures dropped across the country following weeks of unseasonably warm weather.

Snowfalls will resume and increase today, mainly in the southern half of Bulgaria. It will be mostly cloudy. It will snow in many areas. Only in the remote southeastern regions, it will initially rain, but the rain there will also transform into snow later.

Flights leaving and arriving at Istanbul Atatürk International Airport have suffered delays due to strong winds and heavy rains, Doğan News Agency reported late Dec. 17.

A raging California wildfire powered by fierce winds grew into the third-largest in state history on Dec. 16 as forced evacuations turned neighborhoods into ghost towns and ash fell in some areas like heavy snow.

More than 400 flights were canceled at the airport in Toronto, Canada due to heavy snowfall, BGNESreported.

"Winter has come, time may affect some flights in the morning, do not forget to check your flight before heading to the airport," the airport said.

Hundreds of thousands of households in Western Europe were left without electricity because of the snowstorms that caused transport chaos in places in the UK and Germany, reports bTV. 

In most countries, the weather is quite dynamic and there are warnings of a dangerous weather in many places, the bTV weatherman reported.

The heaviest snowfall in four years in Britain caused travel mayhem on Dec. 10, while more than 300 flights were cancelled at Germany’s busiest airport and a ferry ran aground in the French port of Calais.

Strong showers and storms are expected in western Greece on Saturday, spreading to the east on Sunday, along with snowfall in northwestern parts, the national weather service warned on Friday.