Several regions of Western Macedonia in northern Greece woke up to a light snowfall on Thursday morning, as a cold front moved in from northwestern Europe towards the Balkans.
WEATHER
The movement of cold air masses from north-west Europe towards the Balkans and Greece is expected to lower temperatures starting on Wednesday night.
![[InTime News]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/hania_wind_waves_-_intime-320x200.jpg)
A low-pressure system will be sweeping into the southeastern Aegean area on Wednesday, bringing rain, thunderstorms and strong winds for a brief spell of around 24 hours, the National Observatory of Athens’ weather service has reported.
![This Wednesday, May 27, 2020 satellite image made available by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Tropical Storm Bertha approaching the South Carolina coast. [NOAA via AP]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Hurricane_bertha_ap-320x200.jpg)
With named storms coming earlier and more often in warmer waters, the Atlantic hurricane season is going through some changes with meteorologists ditching the Greek alphabet during busy years.
![[Yiannis Papanikos/Intime News]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/snow_intime-320x200.jpg)
The National Observatory’s Meteo weather service is forecasting snow for low altitude areas of northern Greece late on Wednesday night and through to Thursday afternoon.
The power outages and general mayhem caused by last week’s snowstorms, particularly in northern Attica, once again exposed the shortcomings of the country’s state mechanisms and led to the usual blame game over who was ultimately responsible.
The state needs to learn the requisite lessons from the extreme weather that hit Greece this past week.
Tree branches are disentangled from power lines in the affluent district of Dionysos as work to restore power in the capital’s northern suburbs continued on Thursday.
The Hellenic Electricity Network Operator (DEDDIE) has announced that it recognized the difficulties faced by thousands of households who were affected by power outages during the Medea weather system and will remove its transmission/distribution charge from their February electricity bills.
![[Prime Minister’s Office/ Dimitris Papamitsos]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/mitsotakis_meeting-320x200.jpg)
The Greek government will prioritize the replacement of overhead cables providing electrical power with underground cables in critical areas and will soon table a bill seeking to clarify the overlapping responsibilities of state and municipal authorities on maintenance issues, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Thursday, as authorities struggled to restore power in thousands of households hit by a snowstorm early the week.
![Cars covered with snow after a heavy snowfall in Dionysos suburb, northern Athens, on Wednesday. [Thanassis Stavrakis/AP]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Dionysos_snow_weather_medea_ANA-MPA-320x200.jpg)
With the jury out on whether regional authorities or the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator (DEDDIE) were ultimately responsible for the disruptions caused by the Medea weather system, the government was in a race against time on Wednesday to restore power to almost 40,000 households in Attica, particularly in the northern suburbs but elsewhere too.
![[Alexandros Vlachos/ANA-MPA]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/snow_medea_weather_athens_power-320x200.jpg)
About 8,000 households in the region of Attica remained without power on Thursday morning, after a winter storm hammered several parts of Greece on Monday and Tuesday, bringing freezing temperatures to a region unaccustomed to snow.
![A worker removes an electricity cable as a truck with bulldozers drives to a snow covered Dionysos suburb, northern Athens, on February 17, 2021. Greece has called in the armed forces to help cope with the damage caused heavy snowfall that has left parts of greater Athens without power and water for up to three days. [Thanassis Stavrakis/AP]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Dionyssos_avenue_snow_medea_weather-320x200.jpg)
Dionyssos Avenue in northern Attica was reopened to traffic on Wednesday evening, after having been closed off for two days due to a heavy snowstorm that placed the namesake municipality under a state of emergency on Tuesday.
![Crews from grid operator DEDDIE and the fire service are working to restore electricity in the northern suburb of Ekali on Wednesday, following he intense snowfall brought by the cold weather system Medea. [Alexandros Vlachos/ANA-MPA]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/snow_medea_weather_ekali__ANA-MPA-320x200.jpg)
The duration of the snowstorm in Attica this week was 36 hours and it was among the most intense of the last 40 years, according to data from the National Meteorological Service (EMY).
Greece called in the armed forces Wednesday to help repair widespread damage caused by heavy snowfall in Athens.
Frustration over Athens’ power grid failing amid the Medea winter freeze mounted Wednesday as thousands of residents in the Greek capital remained shivering with no assurances that their electricity and heat – out for 24 hours or longer in many households, particularly in the northern suburbs – would return soon.
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