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Cars are stuck in a congested traffic on both banks of the Moskva River outside the Kremlin, during heavy snowfall in downtown Moscow, Russia, Dec. 25, 2014. A massive snowstorm in Moscow on Thursday caused delays to more than a hundred flights and brought traffic to a standstill.Pavel Golovkin/The Associated Press

A massive snowstorm in Moscow on Thursday caused delays to more than 150 flights and brought traffic to a standstill.

None of Moscow's three airports have been closed, but all three were hit with severe delays, including more than a hundred flights being delayed from Domodedovo south of the city.

The snowstorm began early Thursday morning and the Russian Meteorological Office said it expects up to 4 inches of snow to fall in Moscow in a single day.

The Yandex traffic monitoring service said the congestion in Moscow reached the record-high 10 points in the early afternoon, which normally happens only occasionally every year during rush hour.

The congestion was so bad on Thursday that several Cabinet ministers got stuck in traffic and came late for the last session of the government this year, according to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Unlike in some Western European capitals, snowstorms in Moscow hardly ever disrupt public transport or shut down air traffic.

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