Hundreds of travellers were forced to spend Monday night at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport after some 600 flights were cancelled because of the snow.

Hazardous conditions are expected to continue well into Tuesday morning and motorists in particular are being warned to take care on the roads.

However, Dutch Rail said on Monday evening it planned to operate normal services on Tuesday and has brought in extra staff to work overnight to make sure than the trains can run.

The heavy snow caused chaos at Schiphol and the country’s regional airports with both Rotterdam and Eindhoven being closed for a time.

In total, 1,300 camp beds were set up for stranded passengers at Schiphol, broadcaster NOS reported. Train and bus services to and from the airport were also cancelled.

Airline KLM told travellers in the early evening it would no longer be seeking hotel rooms for people who could not complete their journeys because only limited space is available at hotels close to the airport.

Other airlines also came in for criticism. ‘Absolutely outraged by your treatment of passengers at Schiphol,’ traveller Emmy McCarthy twittered to Flybe.

‘Elderly passengers made to stand in a queue for 3.5 hours with no food/water/offer of a seat. And then told the queue they were told to stand in was the wrong one. Bad weather happens, bad care is avoidable.’

The snow caused wide disruption to public transport on Monday evening. Buses in most parts of the country were called back to base and train services were cancelled.

There were no train services between Amsterdam and Utrecht for several hours and Utrecht city council set up the Jaarbeurs exhibition centre as an emergency centre for stranded passengers, the NRC said.

Roads

There was widespread disruption on the roads on Monday evening, with tailbacks reaching a record 1,500 km at one point, motoring organisation ANWB said.

The problems on the roads continued into the night as the temperature dropped and the snow turned to ice in places. The ANWB said it expects difficult driving conditions during Tuesday’s morning rush hour, made worse by sleet or wet snow.

The transport ministry said 1,200 workers were involved in keeping motorways clear of snow and that several million kilos of salt had been used.

Snowfall

At least 10 centimetres of snow fell over most of the country on Monday as heavy snow showers moved in from the west in the late morning. It snowed for much of the day in the west of the country. According to the NRC, 40 centimetres of snow fell in the Veluwe national park region.

However, by mid evening, the snow had stopped in the west and the thaw set in. The snow was expected to continue in the east of the country until around 3am, broadcaster NOS said.

The KNMI weather bureau said Tuesday would begin overcast with some wintry showers but that the skies would clear later in the day. The rest of the week will remain cloudy with wintry showers, but rain is more likely than snow.

The heavy snowfall also caused considerable problems in France, Germany and Belgium.

Schiphol earlier. 1,300 beds for the stranded. #CodeRed pic.twitter.com/KJ7ODYPEcJ

— Chef (@champ_ian) December 11, 2017