Road maintenance services have been busy ploughing and gritting roads, but snow caused serious disruption to traffic in the morning rush hour, especially on the A1 motorway between Ljubljana and the coast.

Disruption caused by snow and snow-related traffic accidents have also been reported from other parts of the country.

Being wet and heavy, the snow has also been causing disruption in power supplies as power lines have been ripped by falling trees.

Some 4,000 households have been left without electricity in the south-central region of Notranjsko and a further 1,285 in north of Primorsko in the west.

Meanwhile, snowing has abated in Ljubljana, which saw long delays in bus services, but the situation is getting back to normal with 600 staff at work cleaning up roads.

According to Brane Gregorčič of the Environment Agency, Friday will be the snowiest day this winter.

Up to 40 centimetres of snow is expected to fall in the north and between 10 and 25 centimetres elsewhere inland, while the mountains could get a snow blanket up to half a metre thick.

Winds blowing from the north could cause snow drifts in particularly in the north-western region of Gorenjsko and there is an increased risk of avalanches in the mountains.

Even though more snow is expected to fall by the evening it will not be anywhere near to record amounts seen in the 1970s or even reach the snowfall recorded last winter.

The record amount of snowfall at altitudes below 500 metres ever was recorded in the village of Soča near Bovec in the west, which was covered in a 105-centimetre-thick snow blanket in 24 hours in March 1970.

The alpine town of Bled received the heaviest amount of fresh snow last winter with 53 centimetres of snow falling within 24 hours on 31 January 2014.

But Kredarica below Mt Triglav, Slovenia's highest peak, holds the record for the amount of snow fallen per winter at 1,662cm in the 2000-01 season. Its snow blanket lasted a record 290 days in 1976/77 and and 1984/85 seasons.