**More than 160 people were stranded in their vehicles overnight in Germany after heavy snowfall brought a motorway along the Baltic Coast to a standstill.**Rescue crews had to use snow ploughs to push through 2m (78in) drifts to free the travellers, among them 19 children.
Hundreds more were stranded at airports as dozens of flights were cancelled, and rail and ferry services were cut.
Elsewhere in Europe, some 80,000 people were left without electricity in Poland after snow damaged power lines.
A number of flights were cancelled on Sunday from UK airports and Eurostar ran a reduced service between Britain, France and Belgium.
In France, several hundred people on their way to ski in the Alps were forced to spend the night at Lyon airport after fresh snow disrupted travel.
Islands cut off
Germany was hit by severe winter weather for a second day on Sunday, with Leipzig and Berlin both under almost a foot (30cm) of snow and gale-force winds buffeting many places.
Dozens of villages in rural Schleswig-Holstein and on Baltic Sea islands remain cut off and many accidents have been reported on icy roads across the country, a situation exacerbated by shortages of grit.
Parts of the A20 motorway near Altentreptow, where motorists were stranded overnight, remain blocked by snow drifts, the Associated Press reports.
Travellers were taken to emergency tents for food and shelter, while police and rescue workers sought to clear the drifts and free their vehicles.
By 1100 GMT on Sunday, 63 flights had been cancelled at Frankfurt airport, the AFP news agency reports.
More than 400 people spent the night there after 226 flights were cancelled on Saturday, as snow ploughs struggled to clear runways.
Germans were advised before the weekend to stock up on enough essential supplies to last up to four days and to equip themselves with a battery-powered radio to hear weather reports.
In cities like Duesseldorf, Red Cross workers were setting up heated tents for emergency accommodation as up to 10 homeless people have frozen to death in recent weeks because of the cold weather.
Dwindling supplies
Many other countries across Europe have also been hit by the bitter conditions.
About 3,000 homes in south-eastern France were without power for a second day on Sunday, AFP reports.
Nearly 140 people have frozen to death in the past few weeks in Poland, and in Switzerland, heavy snow has cut the flow of lorries through Alpine tunnels.
In the UK, which is suffering its worst winter for decades, thousands of tonnes of emergency gritting salt are being sent to the worst affected areas.
Temperatures have dropped as low as -22C (-8F) in some parts in recent days.
Local authorities have agreed to cut their use of salt by 25% in an attempt to preserve dwindling supplies.