VIENNA, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Austria was hit by a record October snowfall late on Tuesday when strong winds and heavy snow caused power blackouts, train delays and traffic accidents.

    Austria television ORF on Wednesday quoted a senior meteorologist Gerhard Hohenwertner from the Central Agency for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) as saying that Tuesday's was the heaviest snowfall in the month of October in the country in the past 25 years.

    Thirty centimeters of snow was measured in eastern Austria at Steiermark.

    As an Arctic wave has swept across Austria since Monday, most provincial capitals have seen and will see their earliest snowfall in history this week, another ZAMG scientist predicted.

    Josef Haselhofer said the Monday Arctic air would probably result in the first snow cover in provincial capitals before Oct. 20, the previous record.

    He also predicted that between 30 and 40 centimeters of snow would be likely to fall this week.

    The early snowfall has uprooted trees in some provinces and Huber Hasenauer, from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, said the abrupt change of temperature had damaged trees enormously.

    Uprooted trees have blocked road traffic in three places across the country, according to police sources.