2024 Winter Chaos in Europe

From January 17 to 18, Europe faced a tough time with lots of snow and freezing rain. This bad weather caused a lot of problems, like messing up flights and trains, closing schools, and making roads super slippery.

In Germany, the weather people warned everyone about really heavy snow in the central and southern areas. Frankfurt Airport, which is super busy, had to cancel about 700 flights because of the bad weather. They were worried that planes might get icy when they were landing. Roads in western and southern Germany got really icy, causing lots of car crashes. To be safe, many schools and places for kids to stay during the day were closed. Some people even got to work from home.

Train rides in Germany weren’t smooth either. The main train company, Deutsche Bahn, had to slow down their fast trains from 300 kilometers per hour to 200, and there were a bunch of delays and cancellations.

Over in Denmark, the snow and strong winds made driving dangerous, and there were some accidents. The police told people to stay home if they could and to move their meetings.

In Oslo, Norway’s capital, they had to stop the buses because of too much snow and not being able to see well. This left a lot of people stuck. Roads and trains in southern Norway also had problems because of the weather.

Airports in the city had to close for a while because the pilots couldn’t see through all the snow. “It’s really rare that we get so much snow the pilots can’t see the ground lights, so we’ve stopped all planes from coming in or going out,” said someone from Avinor, the airport folks in Norway.

All trains in eastern Norway got canceled, and there were lots of delays and cancellations for buses, trams, metros, and ferries.

In Sweden, at the Gothenburg airport, a plane slid off the path where planes drive and got stuck in the snow one morning. The main train company in Sweden, SJ, had to cancel many trains until early March because of all the snow and really cold weather.

In the northeast of France, in Lorraine, they put out an orange warning for icy rain and snow. There were a lot of problems on the roads, and public transport got messed up. The weather service in France said there would be more snow and rain in most of the northeast.

Southern parts of Belgium and Luxembourg were also on high alert because the freezing rain was making it hard to drive.

This extreme weather is happening one after the other, not giving people much time to get ready. It’s causing chaos in our daily lives, messing up our homes and cities, and sometimes it even takes lives.

What’s going on with our planet? Why are these natural disasters happening more and more? Why haven’t our efforts to stop climate change worked yet? You can find answers at the “Global Crisis. The Responsibility” event.