Think snow is deep near you? Italian has to wade through FIVE-FEET high snow to leave his house 

An Italian man had to wade through five-feet high snow just to leave his house after large parts of central and northern Europe were blanketed. 

Marco Malcangi said he wanted to take advantage of the recent snow fall and do some powder skiing.

But the 22-year-old got more than he bargained for as he was greeted with snow that was five feet deep where he was staying in Valle d’Aosta, in the Italian alps.

In a video shared by the Italian, only his head and shoulders are visible as he wades through the snow towards the camera, with his home in the background.

Wearing a large red ski jacket, goggles, mittens and a winter hat with a GoPro mounted on top, he is seen using his ski poles to help fight through the snow.

Marco, from Cervinia, said: ‘I was visiting this location to do some powder skiing. The snow was about 150 cm deep. I filmed myself to show me sinking in the deep snow.

‘What a great day experimenting a snow that you usually find in Japan,’ he said. ‘I would like people watching this video to enjoy winter and the rare conditions that can be found.’

Parts of central and northern Europe have been gripped by a cold weather front since the weekend, with some places unaccustomed to such extremes being blanketed with heavy snowfall.  

Workers at Paris’ Eiffel Tower used a blowtorch to melt the ice collecting on its surfaces and snow was blocking roads and halting trains and school buses on Wednesday across northern France.

Amid a European cold snap, areas in Normandy and Brittany unused to such icy conditions were closing highways for lack of snow-clearing equipment.

In parts of the Paris region, local authorities halted school buses and urged parents to keep their children at home.

Snow blanketed the French capital and even froze the Eiffel Tower.

‘When negative temperatures return, my floors get partially covered with ice! To get rid of it, we need to use a blowtorch because ice-control salt is too corrosive for the metal,’ the monument’s official Twitter account said.

The Eiffel Tower has been closed to the public for months because of coronavirus restrictions.

Meanwhile, heavy snowfall tangled traffic and stranded drivers in Germany and the Czech Republic.

Some took advantage of the frosty climes. Cross-country skiers glided across the Charles Bridge in Prague, children sledded in the usually snowless parks of Belgium’s capital of Brussels, and the deep winter freeze has reawakened the Dutch national obsession with skating on frozen canals. 

France’s ski resorts are closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so one French winter sports enthusiast did the next best thing on Wednesday – skiing down a steep street in Paris.

‘Because the government has closed down ski resorts, we do what we can,’ said the urban skier, who gave his name as Nathan. ‘We’re reduced to doing this, unfortunately.’

Paris was blanketed in snow, but skiing conditions were far removed from the wide, sweeping pistes of the French Alps.

In the city’s hilly Monmartre district, Nathan tried to ski down a steep section of cobbles running alongside a flight of steps that visitors climb to reach the Sacre Coeur church.

But his skis skittered over the thin snow covering and he fell repeatedly, colliding several times with trees.

Later, he moved on to a small patch of grass directly beneath the church, where he was able to get in several successful, if short, runs. 

Britain recorded the lowest temperature in 26 years on Thursday after a bitingly cold blast of Siberian weather swirled in from Russia, pushing temperatures down to minus 23 Celsius in the Scottish Highlands.

The temperature in the village of Braemar fell to minus 23C (minus 9.4 Fahrenheit) at 0813 GMT, the lowest temperature recorded since 1995, and the lowest February temperature in Britain since 1955 when Winston Churchill was still prime minister.

‘We can now confirm that last night was the coldest February night across the UK since 23rd February 1955,’ Britain’s national meteorological service said. ‘That includes the infamous winter of 1962/1963.’

Swathes of Britain have been bathed in snow for days after the cold spell swept in from Scandinavia and Russia: roads were blocked, the fountains in Trafalgar Square froze and children tried to toboggan in London parks.