Snow storm delays transport in northern and western regions

A winter storm disrupted air and land transportation in Paris on Wednesday, as well as in northern and western France. The snowstorm also caused traffic delays and flight cancellations in neighbouring Belgium.

The region around Paris saw up to 3cm of snow fall earlier Wednesday, causing traffic problems on the city’s ring roads and delays of about an hour at the city’s Charles de Gaulle airport, according to civil aviation authorities.

By evening, some of the worst winter weather conditions had dissipated, according to the French national weather service Meteo-France. An orange-level alert for the region around Paris was lifted later Wednesday. However, the northern regions of Picardy, Normandy and Nord-Pas-de-Calais were still under an orange alert.

For the French capital though, the worst appeared to be over by Wednesday evening. "Most of the snow has already dissipated over metropolitan Paris,” said a meteorologist from Meteo-France. “We are only expecting a few hours of rain, soft and dispersed."

Expecting precipitation to grow in frequency and intensity, Meteo-France extended the severe weather warning to other departments, including Alpes de Haute-Provence and Alpes-Maritimes, Côtes-d'Armor, Ile-et-Vilaine, Mayenne and Var.

New snowstorms were forecast for France’s Atlantic coast, from the Calvados region to the Belgian border, with 15cm of snow for Boulogne Dunkirk, with winds blowing at more than 80kph.