Harsh winter weather shuts down European airports, kills 9

2010-12-02 02:48:37 GMT+7 (ICT)

BERLIN (BNO NEW) — As heavy and constant snowfall covers Europe with several inches of thick snow, airports on Wednesday have been canceling and shutting down their operations while traffic jams have remained motionless.

The Geneva airport in Switzerland closed Tuesday night and will reportedly remain closed until at least Thursday morning after the city gathered 10 inches of snow in 24 hours. However, the Zurich airport has remained open, although reports say some flights have been delayed or canceled.

In addition, around 60 flights were canceled in Frankfurt, Germany, Europe's third busiest airport, while the Munich airport canceled around 250 flights as well. On Tuesday, 300 were canceled in Frankfurt.

The flight cancellations are occurring as Berlin faces its coldest December 1 in 80 years at a temperature registered during the night of minus 10.9 degrees Celsius (12.3 degrees Fahrenheit).

Gatwick Airport near London and Edinburgh Airport were also forced to shut down.

Meanwhile, at least 8 homeless people, aged from 33 to 72, died in Poland due to the harsh weather that dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas.

A pensioner from Freistadt, Austria also died during the night after he fell unconscious while walking, and freezing to death as he was not found for several hours.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2010-12-02

So much for all the global warming bull shit!

^ That didn't take long. Don't worry about the record-breaking heat this year, the utterly unarguable long-term rise in temperature or the fact that increased precipitation is a consequence of a warming world.