Problems continue following snow and gale-force winds

Several schools shut down in northern Greece's prefectures of Florina, while other areas in western Macedonia including the main city of Thessaloniki, and Edessa, Kastoria and Florina faced below-zero conditions and car chains were required for travel on several roads, including those leading to the monastic community of Mt. Athos, in the peninsula of Halkidiki. In addition, the Kaimaktsalan ski resort was shut down because of powerful winds.

The northern area of Serres prefecture, its basin in particular, were dealing with the overflow of the artificial Kerkini lake that began on Tuesday following heavy rainfall and the flow of excess water coming from Bulgaria, which also faced extreme weather conditions these past weeks, while waters also rose in another significant biodiversity region, the Prespes Lakes.

In the northern Aegean, coastal areas on the island of Samos was pummelled by gale-force winds on Tuesday and its schools remained shut down on Wednesday in mountain areas, where the snow reached 10 cm deep.

Meanwhile, on Crete mountain villages in the prefectures of Iraklio and the Lassithi plain, which bore the brunt of snowfall a few weeks ago, faced 40-cm-deep snow, strong winds and early on Wednesday morning hail, which also fell on the island's main city of Iraklio. The region of Chania faced most of the weather's repercussions with the additional danger of landslides.

Southern Greece and the Peloponnese in particular had low temperatures but major roads were for the most part cleared of snow and circulation of trucks allowed on the Tripolis-Sparti national road after a ban was lifted. Sections of the national road, like Kalamata-Sparti and Levidi-Nemea, as well as of the old national road, such as the Argos-Tripolis section, required snow tyres.