A train is parked at the central station after heavy snow fall in Munich, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

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A potent winter storm has caused m​ajor travel disruptions and at least one major German city to stop in its tracks on Saturday.

T​he storm system which has pivoted from northern Italy toward Poland, western Russia and Ukraine, brought unusually early and deep snow to the region, especially in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

(​IN LOCAL DETAIL: German Weather News)

After initially announcing a halt in air traffic until noon on Saturday, until 6 a.m. Sunday. Other airports in the region, including in the Swiss financial capital, Zurich, also announced weather-related delays and cancellations.

Trains to and from Munich’s central station were also halted, Germany’s national railway said, advising passengers to delay or reroute their journeys. The reported that some passengers in Munich and the nearby city of Ulm spent Friday night on trains due to the halt.

(​LATEST: Munich, Germany Radar)

In Munich, no buses or trams were operating as of Saturday afternoon, the local transit authority said. Some subway and regional train lines were also affected by the weather.

Downed trees left “many thousands” of people without power across the state of Bavaria, the utility company Bayernwerk told dpa.

Officials for Germany’s Bundesliga also announced that a between Bayern Munich and Union Berlin, originally scheduled for Saturday afternoon in Munich, .

Police in Lower Bavaria, the region northwest of Munich, said they responded to 350 incidents related to snow and ice between Friday night and early Saturday, some of which led to minor to moderate injuries.

T​he snow caused across the region. One traffic jam near Munich stretched for 18 miles, according to a spokeswoman for the ADAC on Saturday morning. Nearly 100 other traffic jams across Bavaria stretched more than six miles (or 10 kilometers).

In Austria and Switzerland, the new snowfall led officials to raise the alarm about the . The provinces of Tyrol and Vorarlberg in western Austria raised their avalanche warnings to the second-highest level after the region received up to 20 inches (or 50 centimeters) of snow overnight.

(​MORE: Latest European Weather Alerts)

The Austrian railway company OeBB said Saturday afternoon that various stretches of its routes across the country were closed due to the storm.

In the Czech Republic, the major highway and some other roads were blocked for hours, trains and public transportation faced delays and cancellations, and over 15,000 households were without power.

The key D1 highway that links the capital Prague with the second largest city of Brno was in a standstill for hours after an accident that caused a 12.4-mile (or 20-kilometer) long line of trucks. Traffic jams also hit other parts of the highway as well the D5 that links Prague with Germany.

A number of high-speed and regional trains had to stop in the southern part of the country as cross-border trains from neighboring Austria and Germany didn’t operate, and some roads were expected to remain closed for the day.

Information from t​he Associated Press, dpa and Burda contributed to this report.

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