Europe faced weekend weather misery with scores of flights cancelled yesterday as snow blanketed swathes of the continent, severing key highways and disrupting rail and electricity links.
Germans were urged to buy enough food and medicines to last for up to four days in the face of a blizzard. The government said all non-essential travel should be avoided.
More than 200 flights were cancelled at Frankfurt, Europe's third largest airport, spokesman Juergen Harrer said, adding that many more had been delayed.
Traffic on the A5 highway between Germany and France was badly disrupted after police blocked off the border road to trucks for several hours due to heavy snow, German traffic police said.
Between five and 10 centimetres of snow fell in northern Germany, Uwe Baumgarten of the country's meterological services said.
Black ice has caused more than 100 accidents in the southern regions of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg, he added.
With much of Britain already shivering through the worst spell of bad winter weather for more than 30 years, a further blanketing was expected. Forecasters say up to 20 centimetres could settle in the east.
The conditions hit weekend sports games - seven English Premier League football matches were called off and five out of the six Premiership rugby union fixtures were also cancelled.
In London, the Serpentine outdoor swimming lake in Hyde Park was closed for the first time in about 140 years amid icy conditions.
Air travel was also disrupted - at London's Heathrow airport, staff have been working round the clock to keep the runways clear, and predicted delays and cancellations.
The Eurostar rail link between Britain and continental Europe said it was operating two-thirds of services.
Twenty-seven major companies in Britain were ordered to halt using gas on Friday in order to maintain overall supplies amid unprecedented levels of demand.
In France, significant snowfalls caused major delays to train services, and southern regions experienced electricity cuts, with at least 7,000 households affected, according to officials.
Daily gas consumption in France hit a new record last Friday as people struggled to keep warm in the icy weather, the gas network management company said.
A total of 3,053 gigawatt hours (GWh) of gas were used, GRTGaz said, beating the previous daily record of 3,013 GWh, set on January 9 last year.
Michel Daloz, a meteorologist with Meteo France, said a rare combination of factors had caused the wintry weather: a depression over northern Italy bringing relatively warm humid air from the Mediterranean north, where it has met cold air coming from the north and east.
Milder weather is expected for western and southern France, Daloz said, but the cold and snow will continue in the north of the country until Wednesday at least.
With more snow forecast, authorities asked airlines to cut a quarter of flights yesterday at Paris's main Charles de Gaulle airport.
In the Czech Republic, six workers in the central town of Chrast escaped unhurt when a factory roof collapsed under the weight of snow lying on it.
Elsewhere in the Czech Republic, the D5 highway linking Prague with the western city of Plzen was blocked for several hours yesterday after accidents.
Ireland, experiencing its worst weather since 1963, was again hit by fresh snowfall in the east which led Dublin airport to suspend all operations.
Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe ordered all state primary and secondary schools to remain closed until Thursday and police said freezing temperatures were causing problems on the roads.
In the Netherlands, thousands took to the ice on Saturday as skating federation KNSB gave the green light for impromptu skating events on three lakes in the centre and northeast of the country.
Dutch Railways deployed special teams to prevent railway points from freezing at key junctions but nevertheless warned of possible delays.
Scores of flights were cancelled in Brussels as Belgium experienced its first heavy snowfalls this winter. Traffic on highways was affected.
Polish authorities said about 25,000 households were without electricity in the southern region of Kielce and Katowice after power lines were snapped by heavy branches felled in the snow.
In Italy, strong winds and rain toppled trees in the centre of the country and around Rome, leaving some 65,000 people without electricity, civil protection officials said.