ALERT: France & Netherlands- Eiffel Tower closed; flights canceled in Paris and Amsterdam due to weather (February 9, 2018)
February 9, 2018
The Eiffel Tower has been closed since Tuesday due to the heaviest snow in three decades that has covered the French capital. Several flights from Paris airports and in Amsterdam were cancelled or delayed. Hundreds of people spent the night trapped in their vehicles in Paris.
According to The Daily Mail:
Eiffel Tower is closed because the stairs are too icy as snow and freezing rain hits northern France. Authorities are telling drivers in the Paris region to stay at home as snow and freezing rain have hit a swathe of northern France.
The company that manages France’s most-visited monument said the 19th-century Eiffel Tower will be closed all day Friday and Saturday ‘to ensure the security of visitors’.
The Evening Standard reports:
Commuters faced a fourth day of travel chaos as freezing conditions caused transport to grind to a halt following heavy snowfall on Tuesday evening.
Authorities urged motorists to stay off the roads in the Île-de-France region as more snow was expected to move in throughout Friday morning.
It is anticipated that Parisians could see between 4cm and 7 cm of further snowfall.
Meteo France said that Friday’s snow will not be as heavy as Tuesday night’s flurry, but said that due to the plummeting temperatures there was danger of ice on the roads.
On Thursday evening forecasters issued an alert across Paris warning of dangerous conditions.
Railway lines were up and running again on Friday morning with the Metro and RER reported to be working as usual.
But an announcement on the RATCP said that it would update travel services as the weather changed throughout the day.
Temperatures are expected to reach lows of -3C and highs of 4C on Friday as the cold snap wears on.
The Netherlands Times reports:
Snow fall in the Netherlands is causing problems with air traffic. Schiphol lists a number of flight cancelations, and KLM announced on Thursday that the airline is canceling 26 flights scheduled for Friday. Motorists, especially in the west of the country, are warned to be careful of icy roads during morning rush hour.
The snowfall is expected to start around 10:00 a.m. in the west of the country, and then spread out through the rest of the Netherlands during the course of the day. Meteorological institute KNMI issued a code yellow weather warning.
Between 1 and 3 centimeters of snow is expected during the afternoon, and that will cause dangerous driving conditions in the west, southwest and center of the country during evening rush hour, according to Weeronline. The eastern and north eastern parts of the Netherlands will only see snow during the evening.
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