Snow chaos in Bavaria: Munich cut off from the World

The state of Bavaria is currently battling heavy snowfall. Several passengers were forced to spend the night from Friday to Saturday on trains, as operations at Munich Airport are halted, and rail lines have been shut down.

Traffic chaos has descended on southern Germany due to snow and ice. The most challenging situation continued throughout Saturday in southern Bavaria. Munich Airport announced that heavy snowfall had resulted in the suspension of flight operations until at least Sunday noon ET. Lufthansa advises passengers with journeys scheduled for Sunday to regularly check the status of their flights before traveling to the airport.

Munich's disruption has implications for other airports. Approximately 20 planes that were expected to land in Munich on Saturday (12 February 2023) were rerouted to Frankfurt and Main. These were primarily long-haul flights. The airport spokesperson disclosed that Frankfurt airport's capacity is fully occupied, and further diversions were no longer feasible.

Train operations are also presented with significant difficulties. Railway traffic came to a halt at Munich's main station (Hauptbahnhof) All long-distance connections have been canceled, including those from Bavaria's capital to Salzburg, Innsbruck, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Lindau and Zurich. Restrictions lasted all through Saturday. "We recommend postponing journeys to and from Munich" – stated the spokesperson for Deutsche Bahn. Hefty delays and train cancellations can be expected across southern Germany.

According to the DPA agency, winter conditions forced a train traveling from Stuttgart to become a sleeper train at the main station in Ulm. Passengers who were stranded at the main station in Munich could also spend the night in a Deutsche Bahn train provided specifically for this purpose.

In the Bavarian capital in the morning, the operation of buses, trams, and subways had stopped. On the roads in southern Bavaria, there were several accidents, prompting the police to appeal to the public to stay indoors. Many roads outside towns were heavily snowed in or blocked by fallen trees during the morning. Services were busy rectifying these obstructions throughout the day.

A multitude of car accidents took place across the state, and long traffic queues formed on the highways, including a 18.6-mile-long congestion on the A8 highway from Munich to Salzburg. A neighboring state, Baden-Württemberg, saw 15.7 inches of snowfall from Friday night to Saturday. The police reported an incident where a 54-year-old driver was killed in Emmingen-Liptingen on Friday night after his car skidded and collided with a van. The van driver was unharmed.

In Munich, the soccer match scheduled for Saturday between Bayern Munich and Union Berlin was also called off.

It snowed throughout Germany all Saturday. Germany's meteorological services are expecting the heaviest snowfalls in the Allgäu region, with 11.8 to 15.7 inches of fresh snow predicted. In Saxony, snowfall of about 3.9 inches was possible. Additionally, frequent snowfall was expected on the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts, and the neighboring inland regions.

On Saturday evening, meteorologists also predicted severe frost with temperatures of 14-5 degrees Fahrenheit, especially in the northern Schleswig-Holstein area and in the mountainous regions of southwestern Germany.