Published: 30 Jan 10 16:07 CET
More than 25 centimetres of new snow disabled traffic throughout northern Germany on Saturday, particularly in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where Baltic islands have been cut off.
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The low pressure front known as "Keziban" has brought more brutal winter weather to Germany. Storms, new snow and several-metre-high snowdrifts have disrupted rail and road traffic throughout northern Germany. One Interior Ministry spokesman said that conditions were "even more drastic" that the storm front "Daisy" from a few weeks ago in some areas.Hundreds of road accidents have been reported throughout Germany, with around 70 cars apparently stuck on the roads of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The entire public transport system in the town Rostock has been shut down, as have several rail services in the area.Ferry services to and from Germany's Baltic Sea islands have also been partially shut down, with the island of Hiddensee completely cut off.The police and rescue services have been severely hindered by the weather, and the police have appealed to the population to avoid unnecessary journeys. The German Weather Service extended its storm warnings to huge parts of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the morning, and warned against entering wooded areas, where the weight of the snow threatens to bring down many trees.All football matches in the state have been cancelled, including Hansa Rostock's second division match against Union Berlin.The extreme weather has extended to other states. A total of 42 people were injured in around 300 accidents reported in North Rhine-Westphalia, and a man was killed on the A16 motorway near Bedburg. The A33 motorway has been closed between Paderborn-Sennelager and Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock.A driver was also killed in Bavaria after his car skidded off an icy road, while a truck crashed on the A21 in Schleswig-Holstein, blocking the motorway for several hours.
Heavy snow combined with high winds has caused at least three deaths, with major travel disruption throughout much of Germany. Several motorways were closed, with long traffic jams on many others. As flights were delayed and rail travel cancelled, the police of North Rhine-Westphalia recorded over three hundred accidents, with a total of 42 injured people, during Friday night and into Saturday, with one death as a result of a man stepping out of his car and into the path of another after a motorway accident.

Cars were abandoned, and even the gritters were stranded. In the north of Germany, as much as 25cm of snow immobilised the transport network whilst police and other emergency services struggled to cope. Football matches have been cancelled across the entire nation, and ferry services to the Baltic Sea islands cancelled, with at least one completely cut off.

The Alster Lake in Hamburg froze over, prompting hundreds of citizens to skate across it, in what meteorologists say happens just once a decade.