High winds and heavy snow in Europe on Monday stranded thousands of travellers, kept schoolchildren at home and even played havoc with international diplomacy. It was the second day running of nasty weather across the continent, with Britain still digging out from its deepest snowfall in four years.
The snowed-over runways in Brussels on Monday provoked about 90 flight cancellations and some 100 delays, including for the plane carrying Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu back home. He tweeted a video from his plane that opened with a shot of the white tarmac at the close of his European visit marked by the US recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
A scheduled meeting between Netanyahu and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had to be called off because of the weather, officials said. Brussels airport advised passengers to stay away, as staff were trying to de-ice planes and clear snow from the runways.
"Heavy snowfall: do not come to the airport until further notice," the airport said on Twitter, adding that passengers should check the status of their flights. Schiphol airport, just outside Amsterdam, was forced to cancel 430 flights already by early afternoon - about a third of all flights in or out of one of Europe's top five busiest air hubs - while many others faced long delays.