notamermaid

Welcome to Cruisecritic and thank you for saying hello from your cruise. I think I have never or hardly ever mentioned flooding in August here because it is so rare. What an unexpected impact on your river cruise. Sorry to read about the long drive. Hopefully things will improve for you after today. The weather is improving and it should get warmer again. Have a great time on the Main and Rhine. notamermaid

Hooray to that! I hope Passau will be very enjoyable. Just as a side note - I had mentioned Kelheim. Excursion boats cannot run to Weltenburg Monastery due to the flooding. But the situation is improving fast so hopefully they can sail again soon. Pfelling peaked at 644cm and is now at 622cm. That's it from me for today. Tomorrow lunchtime we should see the wave having gone through Passau and the water already having receded a little. notamermaid

With Mainz gauge having reached a plateau and the wave to be at its peak at Kaub soon let us have a look at what the authorities expect to happen in the next few days. The level should go down fairly fast to begin with so that by Monday we could be seeing figures of below 200cm again. The down trend will slow down so that for the first half of September we can be confident that the level will stay really pleasant for river cruising, meaning staying well above 100cm. That looks really good but of course there is always a level of uncertainty in these computer modellings so after a short recap of the month we will look at this again in the next few days. notamermaid

You are right. While the Canal can carry a lot of water due to precipitation, it is very much a man-made managed body of water and currently shows no high. This is Riedenburg, close to the confluence with the Danube: The authorities try to keep the Canal at a level of no less than 400cm. The flooding comes from the Danube proper all the way from the upper part of the basin in Germany where Alpine rivers also join. Some additional water has also come from the Regen river which joins at Regensburg. So the Danube is fairly high from Kelheim to Budapest with waves going through that raise the level to mild or moderate flooding in some stretches. notamermaid

Dürnstein gauge again: While it is down quite a bit, the level remains fairly high. I wonder what the new wave coming from Passau will do? That wave is at Vilshofen and will be in Passau soon. Budapest, where the first wave is going through now: As mentioned before, not too big a deal. Authorities expect the level to peak tomorrow at just under 500cm. notamermaid

Thanks for the praise @Canal archive https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2910181-rhine-water-levels-2023-and-similar-topics/page/24/#comments https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2910185-danube-water-levels-2023-and-similar-topics-plus-tips-and-info/page/26/#comments notamermaid

Have a great time Kristelle. notamermaid

Cologne gauge: Looks a dramatic rise, but it is not too bad, you can see that the level is not even close to the mean (MW) yet. It will peak on Saturday at probably no more than 350cm. After that the level will quickly return to figures that are more usual for late Summer. "Flood watch" in the Upper Rhine valley has been deactivated. Back to business as usual there. notamermaid

Not sure, but as I understand it the surge makes a stronger current and it just so happened that huge amounts of rain came down too fast for the ground every where to soak it up. So, 36 hours of rain over a wide area are gushing down the river in sort of 36 hours. I suppose that makes it similar in action to a tidal bore. As steamboats has said, the wave has moved on and is therefore closer to Passau. This is the current situation at the gauges (special edition in the software, as the authorities watch the flooding with a new update every 15 minutes): We see that Passau is at 725cm, awaiting the wave which is at Pfelling, where it has just peaked. Oberndorf further upstream is nicely on the way down again. notamermaid

Kelheimwinzer has reached the plateau, Pfelling to Vilshofen gauges are rising. Passau at 739cm. notamermaid

Hauenstein has left flooding status, in the Upper Rhine valley the wave is ebbing, Maxau gauge is falling nicely, peaked at 655cm, so well below the figure for a river traffic ban. All good. The wave has reached the Middle Rhine valley and Mainz to Kaub have risen with Koblenz just starting to. This will be in Cologne by tomorrow morning. There it should peak on Saturday after noon some time. The level is forecast to stay well below navigational flood mark I. You will be well behind the wave and should encounter mean to a bit above the mean water levels. While we can never rule it out, I personally cannot see a likelihood of an impact to a cruise during that time frame. Possibly minor adjustments to speed and docking locations. If your particular cruise and captain need to make adjustments, do not worry, they are used to this, it really is not a big deal and I am sure they will take great care of you. Have a great cruise. notamermaid

Oooh, that is a stab in my heart. In a good way. Love Mespelbrunn's enchanting appearance - have done ever since I was a teenager. Would you believe it, only about three hours away from home, I have still not been there. I vaguely remember reading about an excursion with a river cruise company, cannot remember where and who did it. notamermaid

Okay, we have read that Riverside has the old Crystal river cruise ships. But this one eluded me, puzzled I was! The Crystal Mahler is now called Transcend Advance. Wasn't there something about another company? This must be it: https://www.transcend.cruises/advance The spotters on Binnenschifferforum saw the ship: https://www.binnenschifferforum.de/showthread.php?115725-Transcend-Advance-KFGS-04812700&p=461988#post461988 notamermaid

Wertheim has steadily become a favourite among the lovely small towns along the Main. Not sure what the frequency is but from what I could see along the river they now appear to get a ship per day. Ochsenfurt appears to still only be used as a stop for passengers to embark or disembark for the logistics of the coach trip to Rothenburg. A shame really, I enjoyed the small place, only had a few minutes but am eager to spend a couple of hours there. That is an interesting itinerary in that it starts in Cologne - Riviera Travel is known for doing this quite often - which cuts out the sailing in the Netherlands and gives extra time later on in a 10 day cruise. I find Cologne so convenient for that. And for the British easy to get to. Andernach is small but an attractive nice addition. A few old buildings, a nice embankment to stroll along, etc. Yes, I like that, too. notamermaid

That is a good question and to be honest I find it difficult to assess. The recent rain has given the Elbe basin quiet a bit of water and the level is good enough now. Depending on what the authorities do, I think there is a chance, but a good chance? No idea. notamermaid

My pleasure. Kelheimwinzer gauge near Regensburg is still rising and statistically on flooding status. The blue marker: Regensburg and Passau will still get a lot of water. By the way, I do not know how this affects river traffic, i.e. if there is a ban. Pfelling gauge is at 608cm, so more than double what river cruise ships need. That is getting close to a level at which a ban is issued. Passau is at 745cm. It looks as if this could be a kind of plateau and we cannot be certain how much the volume of water coming from Regensburg soon will keep this steady or make it rise again substantially. 630cm is the figure given that is needed for most river cruise ships to sail under the bridge. Some with a lower superstructure can of course make the passage at a higher level (as long as there is no river traffic ban). The wave has reached Budapest and a level of 400cm is expected. According to the Hungarian Hydrological Forecast Service this is not considered enough flooding to reach an alert level. I have no idea when a river traffic ban is issued in Hungary. notamermaid

That is a very good website - and the official Austrian one - for many things related to the river. If you want to go really deep into the topic, here is the page: https://www.danubecommission.org/dc/de/die-donauschifffahrt/bruecken-an-der-donau/ notamermaid

The flooding watch - as I call it - has been activated. This is a higher alert level and means that parts of the Rhine are monitored closely and the latest levels at specific gauges are published every 15 minutes. On the website pegelonline the combined graphs look like this this morning: This is just the Upper Rhine valley, the Middle Rhine is not on alert. Kaub gauge is at 189cm and has not even reached statistical mean water yet. It is forecast to do so during the afternoon and will most likely rise close to 300cm on Friday. notamermaid

Looks like they are wearing them, or something close to that: notamermaid

The wave is now at Dunaremete and Nagybajcs in Hungary. notamermaid

Oops. Oh well. I really thought they may do as they do in drought. But I have not spent time in vain. It has been interesting to follow that wave in the graphs. Back to the Romans. I had nearly missed this: a group of people dressed up as Romans is currently marching - I mean during the day - all along the Limes from Eining to Rheinbrohl! Both dress and food are as authentic as possible. They have almost reached their destination. The finale with a celebration will be on 2 and 3 September in Rheinbrohl at the interactive museum Römerwelt. The project is called "Limesmarsch 2023" and they will have marched nearly 750kms. notamermaid

I am sorry to hear that. It is interesting as I saw the high levels on the Austrian gauges and was wondering if they ban traffic right now. It was not fully clear from the description if the levels would automatically trigger this as notices to vessels or the authorities issue the ban separately. Anyway, what a task for the cruise director! Hope you are keeping in reasonable spirits and the trip to Vienna goes ahead with plan C (or whichever it may be now). Passau by the way peaked at 9am this morning at a level of 797cm. It is down to 771cm now. But with much water still coming there is not much chance of the standard high river cruise ships getting under that bridge in Passau soon. This is Dürnstein gauge in Austria: So it looks as if the huge wave has moved on and for now the situation looks to be improving going into the night. notamermaid

Oh dear, are they at it again? Okay, visual proof is necessary, me thinks. This is Maxau: As I posted before, navigational the level will reach flood mark I, and, yes, most likely flooding (650cm). This is so frequent that this level may be called an almost annual occurrence. No more dramatic than that. It may show on the web pages as being bi-annually, though. River traffic ban is at 750cm. The wave is now at Kehl (opposite river bank to Strasbourg), expected to peak around midnight. Which means that all gauges further upstream from Strasbourg are showing falling levels and Hauenstein (near Lake Constance) which is currently signalling official flooding will fall below that status before 1am. We are fortunate that neither Neckar, Main nor Moselle carry a very high volume of water. It rained a lot, but it was neither substantial nor prolonged enough to cause great concern. It really rained hardest over the Danube catchment area with East Switzerland and the tributaries of the Rhine getting some of that heavy rain. notamermaid

Sounds a little less than expected in Passau. Still, not pleasant. The Upper Danube and the tributaries: notamermaid

Yes, that is right, right up there is mild flooding. Lake Constance takes up most of that strain but it will of course result in higher levels along the Rhine. Currently the Middle Rhine valley is letting the rain from much of the Main river and some of the Upper Rhine valley (and the other tributaries) through. The substantial rise in the level has started and is fast. Still only pre-warning for the Rhine: Passau - BAD! Maxau gauge (at Karlsruhe) is climbing fast and as indicated in the pre-warning will most likely reach mild flooding as in navigational terms which will trigger a warning for shipping. But ban on river traffic is not anticipated. notamermaid