Philippe Huguen / AFP - Getty Images
A snow-covered farm house, on March 5, 2012 in Armentieres, northern France, after heavy snow-falls which disturbed the traffic around Lille.
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Jean-christophe Bott / EPA
An aerial view shows rescuers searching for persons under an avalanche at Col de la Croix in the Skiing area The Diablerets, Switzerland, on Wednesday. It is assumed that two persons are buried under the snow.
Jean-Christophe Bott / AP
Picture taken out of a rescue helicopter shows people searching for victims after an avalanche near Col de la Croix mountain, Swiss Alps, near Les Diablerets, Switzerland on Wednesday.
Andrej Isakovic / AFP - Getty Images
A man takes a picture of big chunks of melting ice moving on the Danube River in Belgrade, Serbia, on Feb. 20, 2012.
Darko Vojinovic / AP
People break the ice on a frozen part of the Danube in Belgrade on Feb. 20, 2012. Big chunks of melting ice have damaged hundreds of small boats and several restaurants located on rafts, officials said Monday.
The Associated Press reports from Belgrade, Serbia — Big chunks of melting ice moving on the Danube River have damaged hundreds of small boats and several restaurants located on rafts, officials said Monday.
The thick ice, which had closed hundreds of miles of Europe's busy waterway during the region's recent cold snap, started moving Sunday afternoon because of rising temperatures.
As ice floes up to 1.6 feet thick began to break up in the Belgrade area, hundreds of parked boats crashed into each other and several barges were swept away, officials said. Read the full story.
Scanpix Sweden / Reuters
A snowed-in car is seen in the woods north of Umea in northern Sweden, Feb. 18. A middle-aged Swedish man was found alive in the car on Friday after sitting in it for the past two months, with only ice and snow to keep him alive, according to local police.
Umea University Hospital, where the man is recovering after being rescued by police and a rescue team, said in a statement he was doing well considering the circumstances.
Doctors at the hospital said humans would normally be able to survive for about four weeks without food. Besides eating snow, the man probably survived by going into a dormant-like state, physician Stefan Branth told Vasterbottens-Kuriren.
--Reported by Reuters
Petr Josek / Reuters
Winter has arrived with chilling force in many parts of North America, Europe and Asia.
Fabian Bimmer / Reuters
People walk on the frozen outer Alster lake on a freezing cold day in Hamburg, Germany, Feb. 12. For the first time in 15 years, thousands of people took to the frozen artificial lake to celebrate winter, after local authorities granted permission for festivities to take place on the frozen surface. The worst February cold spell Europe has seen in decades may last until the end of the month, leading meteorologists said.
Upon seeing the image of the frozen lake today, I was reminded of the work of Hendrick Avercamp, who painted a number of winter pictures, one of which is seen below.
Hendrick Avercamp / nga.gov
'Winter Scene on a Frozen Canal' c. 1620, oil on panel. Avercamp based his figures on studies he made from life; he then replicated and recombined them in different ways in his paintings. The woman wearing a mask in the foreground at right reappears in 'Skaters and Tents along the Ice'.
Valdrin Xhemaj / EPA
Members of Kosovo Security Force (KSF) and fire fighters search for a missing person at the site where an avalanche hit houses in the village of Restelica, Kosovo, Feb. 12. At least nine people died and one is missing after an avalanche hit the village of Restelica in southern Kosovo on Feb. 11. Police said some 15 houses were swallowed up by the avalanche but only two were occupied at the time.
AP
Members of Kosovo Security Forces (KSF) and fire fighters search for a missing person at the site where an avalanche hit houses in the village of Restelica, southern Kosovo, Sunday, Feb. 12. Rescuers pulled a 5-year-old girl alive from the rubble of a house flattened by a massive avalanche that killed both of her parents and at least seven of her relatives in the remote mountain village.
NATO peacekeepers, deployed in Kosovo to end the armed conflict between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians in 1999, had been called in to help local authorities in the rescue operation, but were unable to land a helicopter in the blizzard.
"No bigger tragedy has ever struck this region," said local district official Behar Ramadani. "Two brothers with their wives and children have been killed."
--Reported by msnbc.com staff and wire services
Related content: More PhotoBlog posts of winter in Europe
Valdrin Xhemaj / EPA
Members of Kosovo Security Force (KSF) carry an avalanche victim in the village of Restelica, Kosovo, Feb. 12.
Georgi Licovski / EPA
Fishermen break the ice to ensure fish their supply of oxygen at the frozen Dojran Lake, some 162km south of the capital Skopje, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on Feb. 11. Fishermen are trying to protect the fish supply from thousands of birds while Siberian temperatures of minus 20 Celsius per night have frozen waters along the coast of the Dojran Lake.
Bulent Kilic / AFP - Getty Images
A young girl walks in front of a tent, in which she has lived since last year's earthquake, in Van on Friday. A powerful quake shook the Van province, on October 23, 2011, killing more than 600 people and injuring around 2,600. It was followed on November 12 by a 5.6 magnitude tremor that killed another 40 people in the same area.
Daniel Mihailescu / AFP - Getty Images
A man climbs on snow as he gets out from a small cottage in the village of Varasti village, 100km east from Bucharest, on Friday. The death toll caused by the Siberian cold wave continued to widen Friday in Romania, to 57 deaths, said the Ministry of Health.Sixteen people died in the last 48 hours, thirteen in the night from Thursday to Friday, while nearly 150 have been treated for frostbite and hypothermia.Some 60,000 people were isolated in the east, their supplies of food and water being depleted, according to local authorities. Fifty communities were without electricity.
Robert Ghement / EPA
Romanian peasant woman Rodica, 41, shovels around one of her car buried in snow, in the affected village of Maineasa, 30 kilometers north-east from Bucharest, Romania, on Friday. Some 13 deaths were register in Romania due to severe hypothermia in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 57 since first cold wave hit the country on 27 January. Heavy snowfalls are expected over the weekend in eastern and south of Romania.
AP reports from Turkey, where some people made homeless by October's earthquake are still living in tents:
Gonul Meral, 33, has two children and has been homeless since October, when her landlord evicted her after an earthquake left her husband unemployed. She says her tent is so cold that water inside it is freezing solid.
"It is so hard, I had to fight to get a tent and I don't know whether they will let me keep it because those whose houses were damaged have priority," Meral said by telephone. "I am doing the dishes now, but the water in the basin is frozen and I have to heat the water again."
Denis Balibouse / Reuters
A child plays on an ice covered lake wall on the bank of lake Leman in Geneva on Feb. 10, as sub-freezing winter weather temperatures continue in Europe.
Denis Balibouse / Reuters
Children slip on an ice covered promenade on the bank of lake Leman in Geneva on Feb. 10, as sub-freezing winter weather temperatures continue in Europe.
See more incredible photos from winter in our slideshow...
Petr Josek / Reuters
Winter has arrived with chilling force in many parts of North America, Europe and Asia.
Michael Kooren / Reuters
A mosaic made up of thousands of portraits of people who completed the Elfstedentocht eleven cities tour is seen on the Elfstedenbrug (Eleven City Bridge), in Lekkum on Wednesday.
Catrinus Van Der Veen / EPA
Dutch army is deployed on the alternative route of the Eleven Cities Tour (Elfstedentocht) to prepare the alternative route over the Hegemer lake in Woudsend on Wednesday. The Eleven Cities Tour, at almost 200 km, is the world's largest speed skating competition and leisure skating tour, and is held in the province of Friesland, Netherlands only when the ice along the entire course is 15 cm thick.
Peter Dejong / AP
Skaters ride a stretch of the 11 Cities Tour itinerary as they pass through the village of Hindeloopen, northern Netherlands, on Wednesday.
Paul Raats / AFP - Getty Images
The Dutch army is deployed on the alternative route of the Eleven Cities Tour (Elfstedentocht) to make the alternative route over the Hegemer lake in Woudsend, Netherlands, free from snow.
Catrinus Van Der Veen / EPA
A worker wearing skates measures, by means of radar beam, the thickness of the ice at a canal in Balk, a village in the route of the Eleven Cities Tour.
Thousands of men and women have been preparing feverishly for the race: to participate, one must be a member of the Elfstedentocht association, and out of more than 30,000 members, only about 16,000 skaters are allowed to compete.
They set off from Leeuwarden in staggered batches of several hundred skaters, the first ones at 5.00 a.m. in the winter dark, while the last lot bring up the rear at about 10 a.m.
Read more in the full story from Reuters.
Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP - Getty Images
A homeless man eats hot food given by Russia's Emergencies Ministry officers in Moscow on Feb. 8, 2012.
The temperature in Moscow dropped to minus 13 degrees Celsius Wednesday, Agence France Presse reports, but due to high humidity and wind experts said it would feel more like minus 21.
See more images from the biting European winter on PhotoBlog.
Laszlo Balogh / Reuters
Banknotes that have been removed from circulation await processing at the logistics center of the National Bank of Hungary in Budapest on Feb. 7. More than a $1 billion worth of forints will be converted to fuel and handed out to charities.
Every year Hungary recycles approximately $1 billion worth of worn out forints, and converts the used currency into bricks. These bricks are sent to several charities, so they can burn them as heating fuel. The program allows the organization to cover up to a third of their annual heating costs.
According to Reuters, Hungary is the only country to recycle its worn cash for fuel each year.
Laszlo Balogh / Reuters
Tons of shredded and compressed banknotes are unloaded from a truck at the Foundation to Help Autism in Miskolc, Hungary on Feb. 7.
Laszlo Balogh / Reuters
Banknotes shredded and compressed into heating fuel are distributed at the Foundation to Help Autism in Miskolc, Hungary.
Laszlo Balogh / Reuters
Banknotes converted into bricks are burned as heating fuel at the Foundation to Help Autism in Miskolc, Hungary on Feb. 7.
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