Deadly Cold Snap Grips Much of Europe
VAUSE: Welcome back everybody. Fierce storms in the western U.S. have forced thousands of people from their homes. California and Nevada are dealing with heavy rain, snow, flooding and mudslides. The storms damaged homes and left hundreds of thousands without power. High winds brought down the iconic pioneer cabin tree in northern California. The hollow giant sequoia was cut in the 1800s so tourists could pass through. Then a cold snap is gripping much of Europe and it's hitting thousands of refugees especially hard. CNN's Amara Walker has the story.</s>AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From the frozen streets of Warsaw all the way south to the islands of Greece, heavy snow and freezing temperatures are wreaking havoc across much of Europe. With temperatures dropping below minus 30 degrees Celsius in some spots, the extreme cold has claimed the lives of more than 30 people over the weekend. Just in Poland 17 people died of hypothermia and according to government officials 65 have died of cold-related causes since November. In Romania, heavy snow and high winds forced roads and railways to close. Dozens of villages are reported to be without power. At least four people have died there according to local media. Snowstorms paralyzed Turkey's largest city of Istanbul where heavy snow forced hundreds of flights to be cancelled, leaving thousands of travelers stranded over the weekend. In Greece, even the beaches are blanketed with snow. The arctic blast has hit refugees especially hard. Thousands are living in limbo, stranded in makeshift camps like this one in Lesbos while they seek asylum or await relocation. In Serbia hundreds of migrants wrapped in blankets lined up for a hot meal. Many are living in an abandon warehouse with nighttime temperatures well below freezing. They have only a campfire to try to keep warm.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually the cold is too much and last night weren't asleep with all the people sitting around the fire.</s>WALKER: Dozens more refugees are camped out on Serbia's border waiting for a chance to try to enter neighboring Hungary, but aid workers warn these migrants are not equipped to deal with the extreme cold.</s>MILENA RADOSAVLJEVIC, DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS: Since it was minus 20 these few days it's really cold. People are suffering.</s>MOHAMMAD MASSOUD, MIGRANT COMMUNITY REPRESENTATIVE: It's a lot like freezing, completely freezing especially during the night. Nobody can stay here but we have to.</s>WALKER: For many there is nowhere else to go and only more cold expected in the coming days. Amara Walker, CNN.</s>VAUSE: Meteorologist Allison Chinchar joins us now for more on this brutal cold snap -- Allison.</s>ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right. Well, Amara mentioned it that they think (inaudible) is that it is going to linger for many of these locations. Take a look at some of the snow again coming out of Italy. You can see what look like these little white humps here. Those are actually cars that are just entirely buried under the snow. We've had a series of systems kind of come through and we still have a couple of systems around the area that will be impacting the same places over and over again. So we are still looking at additional snow for portions of Italy. We're also talking Hungary. We're talking Bulgaria, Turkey, even into Greece. Again -- the areas that have already seen enormous amounts of snow already now getting even more. We're talking additional accumulations in most (inaudible) about 10 to 15 centimeters. Again that's a decent storm but you have to remember, it's on top of what we've already had and again likely going to last the cold along with it for several more days. Switching gears on the other side, we're talking a major storm system that has been impacting the West Coast and we're about to get our next system that will move through Tuesday into Wednesday of this week. A lot of this pulling moisture from what we call the atmospheric river where some of that moisture has originated as far away as Hawaii now bringing all of that moisture into California, Oregon and Washington. This out of Truckee, California major interstate I-80, which is the big east-west connector was shut down after a mudslide and not to mention all your little tiny roads and highways around that that have also had some closures. Already much of California and even Oregon has picked up about 100 millimeters of rain but now we're talking possibly an additional 100 millimeters on top of what they've already had. So obviously flooding and landslides still going to be a concern going forward.</s>VAUSE: Ok. Allison -- thanks for the update. A short break here. When we come back, Roger Federer getting court time after a six-month layoff. After the break, you'll hear what the Grand Slam champ has planned for the coming season.