SNOW and ice shut Manchester Airport today as the region shivered in its coldest spring freeze for nearly 50 years.
Overnight snow caused chaos, forcing the closure of both runways and grounding aircraft for an hour early this morning.
A spokesman said that runway one was reopened at 7.30am, and the second was expected to open by 9.30.
Andi Benson, forecaster for the Met Office in Manchester, said that overnight temperatures dropped to a low of minus four in the city last night, and minus five in the hills.
He described the roads as "treacherous" this morning as snow that fell last night froze over.
The weather caused scores of sporting fixtures to be postponed today.
Racing at Haydock Park was cancelled after an inspection this morning found that the ground was frozen. Winds direct from the Arctic brought the lowest March temperatures since 1947.
Blizzard
Commuters across Greater Manchester were caught in a half-hour blizzard during rush hour yesterday evening.
The Met Office's weather centre in Stockport said up to five centimetres of snow fell on the high Pennines during a late afternoon flurry.
Forecaster Steve Smith said that yesterday morning saw the coldest March night on record.
He said: "When we checked through the record books we found that the only colder March night was in 1947, when it got down to minus 10."
He said the cold snap would stay with us until Monday, when westerly winds will bring a warmer front.
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"nearly 50 years" you say.
"Winds direct from the Arctic brought the lowest March temperatures since 1947."
1947 was of course 59 years ago. Do you not mean to say "nearly 60 years" ???
A few cm of snow and a lower than usual temperature and, yet again, there's "chaos" at the airport. Perhaps they should seek some advice from people who run airports in countries like Switzerland and Austria....
Yes, but the representative from the airport forgot to mention that out of 3 de-icing units, 1 broke down, the remaining 2 ran out of decider and after they ad been refilled 1 of them also broke down leaving just 1 de-icing unit servicing the queue of waiting aircraft. Oh and there was no fresh water on board my aircraft because the water unit was frozen. The runways may have been opened after an hour but because of the knock on effect of all the other problems my flight finally took off 4 hours later than scheduled.