But while the cold weather has brought transport chaos and devastation to California's billion-dollar citrus fruit industry, some residents in Malibu were delighted by Wednesday's snowfall.

Wendy Stanley, 38, scrambled her young family into action as soon as she saw reports of snow falling on mountains near Malibu, northwest of Los Angeles.

"We ran home, got our cameras and blankets, and now I have kids with frozen feet," said Stanley, who told the Los Angeles Daily News she had not seen snow in the region for 30 years.

There was just enough snow for her children to make "snow mud angels," she said.

Another resident, Joy Blanchard, and her daughter, Sasha, stopped to build a roadside snowman after being caught in the storm.

"This, like, makes my year," Sasha Blanchard told the Los Angeles Times.

Jen Naylor, a Los Angeles native, told the paper she had built a snowman in the city for the first time in her life after racing over to her sister's house in the upscale Westwood neighborhood.

"We used dried cranberry for the eyes and a baby carrot for the nose because it was a baby snowman," Naylor said.

Weather experts meanwhile on Thursday said the "snow" which fell on the neighborhood was probably graupel -- fragments of hail that can easily be confused with snowflakes.

While California is home to many ski resorts, snow in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas is rare. The last snowfall on record in the area came about 20 years ago.

The snow delight was short-lived, however: By Thursday, most of it had melted away as temperatures rose slightly and skies cleared above the city.

earlier related report
Severe Storms Batter Northwestern Europe 11 Dead
London (AFP) Jan 18 - Severe storms packing hurricane-force winds battered northwest Europe on Thursday, killing at least 11 people and triggering a dramatic air-sea rescue from a sinking cargo ship in the English Channel.

The storm brought torrential rains and winds gusting at close to 170 kilometers per hour (105 mph) to areas of southern Britain, as well as northern France, the Netherlands and Germany, causing widespread transport chaos.

Falling trees and pylons claimed the lives of seven motorists, including the managing director of central England's Birmingham airport, Richard Heard, who was killed when a branch fell on his car as he was driving to work.

Two drivers were killed in England, two in the Netherlands, one in France and one in Germany.

In Munich, an 18-month-old baby was crushed to death by a door that was torn off its hinges, while a 73-year-old man was killed after a barn door fell on him in Bavaria.

A pensioner was crushed when a wall collapsed on her near Stockport in northwest England, while a man was killed after being blown into a metal shutter at an industrial estate in Manchester.

In the English Channel, 26 crew who abandoned their sinking freighter were helicoptered to safety in a daring joint French-British operation launched in hazardous conditions.

The French coastguard said all the men who had been huddling in a lifeboat had been winched on board British Sea King helicopters and were being taken to the navy base of Culdrose in southwestern England.

They had been forced to leave their London-registered cargo ship, the MS Napoli, after it developed a 1.5-metre (five-foot) gash just above the waterline.

A spokesman for the British coastguard said the freighter was listing badly off the Cornish coastline.

"We don't know yet whether it will go down," he said.

A French coastguard spokesman, Jean-Marie Figue, said some of the containers on the ship were believed to contain "dangerous materials."

The storms also forced the suspension of cross-Channel ferry services between the English port of Dover and France and caused chaos to road and rail transport in England.

In Germany, winds of 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour were ripping through western and central regions as the storm moved eastwards.

German meteorologists said the storm was shaping up to be the worst in four or five years and authorities warned people only to go outside in exceptional circumstances. The strong winds led to numerous flight cancellations at Frankfurt airport.

The highest wind speed recorded was 169 kph (105 mph) on the Brocken mountain in the Harz range in the centre of the country.

The head of the German rescue services (THW), Albrecht Broemme, said tens of thousands of emergency workers were on standby.

"If this hits all of Germany, things could become pretty bad," he said.

Northern France was also being lashed by rain and winds gusting up to 140 kph (87 mph), creating perilous conditions for motorists and pedestrians, the national weather service said.

In Paris -- where a man was killed last month when strong winds ripped a heavy billboard from a shopfront -- all parks, gardens and cemeteries were closed as a precaution until the end of the violent weather.

The Eurostar train service between Paris, Brussels and London was also suspended.

In Amsterdam, the central train station was closed off because some glass plates came off the roof and all train traffic to and from the central city of Utrecht, a major rail hub, was stopped.

The Dutch transport ministry took the unprecedented step of issuing a warning asking all motorists to avoid getting on the road if possible.

In Italy, 80 flights were cancelled early Thursday at Rome's main Fiumicino airport because of fog, the airport news agency Telenews reported.

Flights to or from Brussels, Casablanca, Paris, Nice, Munich, Florence, Venice and Amsterdam were among the 38 departing and 42 arriving flights cancelled, the report said.

Related Links
Weather News at TerraDaily.com
It's A White Out at TerraDaily.com

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