Temperatures plummeted this week across the eastern half of Europe , with the Alps dipping as low as -20C and to -8.5°C in the Polish town of Zakopane in the Tatras Mountains.

Heavy snow also affected other parts of Poland with 15-20cm (about 6-8in) of snow falling in much of the central swathe of the country and more than 40cm in the south towards the mountains.

This occurred as an area of low pressure moved up from the Balkans and collided with cold Arctic air over Poland. Due to the sheer amount of snowfall, 2,900 firefighter callouts were made and 75,000 homes in Rzeszów were left without power.

To add to the chaos, an Embraer E170STD aircraft, capable of carrying 80 passengers, veered off the runway on to a grass verge on a flight from Warsaw to Vilnius in Lithuania. Air traffi

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