Rhine water levels 2019 and similar topics

[gnome12]

39 minutes ago, FuelScience said:

Thanks Notamermaid. I was thinking about making a similar posting. The other places where I’ve found a lot of river ships are Linz (I think that I counted over 35!) and Vienna (21 Viking Longships by my count).

 

How many Viking longships are there in total?

[Host Jazzbeau]

9 hours ago, gnome12 said:

How many Viking longships are there in total?

 

It's like 'Whack-A-Mole' – as soon as you finish counting, they've built some more!  

[notamermaid]

 

8 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

 

It's like 'Whack-A-Mole' – as soon as you finish counting, they've built some more!  

The wikipedia list on the German site called "Liste der Flusskreuzfahrtschiffe" has problems keeping up with the numbers. Not just Viking though... If you wanted to keep the list up-to-date you would have to make changes at least every six months.

 

According to a German article in the "Basler Zeitung" 130 river cruise ships are registered in Switzerland (as of August 2018). Viking has 65 river cruise ships, most of them are registered in Switzerland. I post the article, I think it is worth giving a translation programme a try on it: http://www.badische-zeitung.de/basel/das-schwimmende-hotel-auf-dem-rhein--156260796.html

 

I will post a statistics article in the thread "The ever increasing popularity of river cruising".

 

notamermaid

 

[Texas Tillie]

notamermaid,

 

Thank you for starting this thread. I'll be on a back to back on the Crystal Bach, Amsterdam-Basel-Amsterdam. Will board April 24 and disembark May 11. Knowing that weather is unpredictable, could you please give me an idea of what to expect as to weather for those dates? Although I'm an American, I can deal with converting temperature from C to F! Thanks!!

[notamermaid]

On 1/14/2019 at 8:10 AM, djh1959 said:

Thanks notamermaid.  I followed your posts last year, and now we are back from our European break, I will be following even more as we are sailing on Scenic Amsterdam to Budapest in October.

 

Fingers crossed that this is a better year than last year.

 

We got a sprinkle of snow in Strasbourg and Riquewihr just over a week ago and also a little in Frankfurt on Friday so it is definitely coming.

SNOW!

 

It has finally snowed in my part of the valley and the landscape is dusted white. As we have had three frosty days in a row the snow will not immediately melt. Still, it is a short visit as warmer temperatures will come soon and when not dry will bring us rain instead. More snow is forecast for next week.

 

I might have missed it in a previous post of yours, what was yor itinerary, river and post-cruise or just land trip this time?

 

I am in the process of planning a trip to Alsace in the Spring and plan to revisit Riquewihr. I was there about 17 years ago.

 

notamermaid

 

[OzNaiNai]

1 hour ago, notamermaid said:

 

It has finally snowed in my part of the valley and the landscape is dusted white.

 

‘Oh that sounds so pretty.

Hard for me to imagine what it must feel like as it’s so hot here. After days of being 42 it’s forecast to be 44-45 tomorrow. It’s  11pm & 31(88F) at the moment.

 

pity I won’t get the chance to experience snow when I come for my Basel-Amsterdam Cruise  at the end of March. I’ve booked to do the Bernina & Glacier Express before the cruise, so might see some snow from the train window.

this will be my first river cruise & after what happened at the end of last year, I was worried about it turning into an expensive bus trip. Though guess high rather than low water might be more of a problem the first week of April.

 

thanks so much for keeping us abreast of what’s happening there.

 

ps, interesting to read about the number of river ships, no wonder they warn as about parallel docking. I was sold a Viking Cruise on the promise they had grandfather rights to the docks, so more chance of being moored to a dock not another ship. But the number of just Viking ships, Must put a lie to that.

Edited January 23, 2019 by OzNaiNai

[notamermaid]

7 minutes ago, OzNaiNai said:

 

‘Oh that sounds so pretty.

Hard for me to imagine what it must feel like as it’s so hot here. After days of being 42 it’s forecast to be 44-45 tomorrow. It’s  11pm & 31(88F) at the moment.

 

pity I won’t get the chance to experience snow when I come for my Basel-Amsterdam Cruise  at the end of March. I’ve booked to do the Bernina & Glacier Express before the cruise, so might see some snow from the train window.

this will be my first river cruise & after what happened at the end of last year, I was worried about it turning into an expensive bus trip. Though guess high rather than low water might be more of a problem the first week of April.

 

thanks so much for keeping us abreast of what’s happening there.

 

ps, interesting to read about the number of river ships, no wonder they warn as about parallel docking.

Hello to Australia. I myself cannot imagine your temperatures. I think the hottest it has ever been here in my part of the valley was 41 degrees a couple of years ago. On one day. 36 is already more the exception that the norm in Summer. Glacier Express I think could well have snow in April still. But I am not so familiar with the area. But it will be cooler up there than in the Rhine valley. Low water in March/April no chance (good!), but flooding can happen indeed. It can be mild, then the traffic is just slowed down. Real, proper flooding, which is usually not long when it does happen, closes the river. But that is then sometimes only on individual sections.

 

Have a good night.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

OzNaiNai,

 

just to add to the topic of snow. I heard in the UK a while ago that there it is statistically more likely to snow at Easter than at Christmas. How odd. I do not know what it is like statistically for France or Germany, but in 2013 I walked in snow in Bavaria during my river cruise as it had snowed at Easter!

 

As regards your ps: Viking does have exclusive rights to some docking locations along the Rhine, that is certainly correct. In a few places you might double-dock with another Viking ship, though. Not sure where but in Koblenz the chances these days are high.

 

notamermaid

 

[gnome12]

36 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

As regards your ps: Viking does have exclusive rights to some docking locations along the Rhine, that is certainly correct. In a few places you might double-dock with another Viking ship, though. Not sure where but in Koblenz the chances these days are high.

 

notamermaid

 

Or triple dock with 2 other Viking ships. (The advantage is that if they are all Viking longships you don't have to climb up to the sunroof to get across; you will cross from lobby to lobby. It doesn't solve the issue of the view however.)

[Francislumd]

Checking on any forecast for high water conditions for a May 11 to 20 Basel to Amsterdam trip on Gate1 Monarch Empress? We want to avoid high water that will cause the bus/hotel alternative. Many thanks. 

[notamermaid]

40 minutes ago, Francislumd said:

Checking on any forecast for high water conditions for a May 11 to 20 Basel to Amsterdam trip on Gate1 Monarch Empress? We want to avoid high water that will cause the bus/hotel alternative. Many thanks. 

On the Rhine less likely in May than in April. River closures usually do not last long when they happen. Unfortunately I cannot give you statistics of how often it happens. I am sure they exist somewhere...

 

A prediction is available on the internet around seven days out, a reliable forecast is available 48 hours out.

 

The site I normally use is pegelonline.

 

Closer to the season starting I will mention water levels of note. We are currently close to mean levels (meaning a little under it) which I am just mentioning in case anybody is wondering. This early in the year one cannot draw any conclusions from this as regards levels in March and later.

 

notamermaid

 

[djh1959]

20 hours ago, notamermaid said:

SNOW!

 

It has finally snowed in my part of the valley and the landscape is dusted white. As we have had three frosty days in a row the snow will not immediately melt. Still, it is a short visit as warmer temperatures will come soon and when not dry will bring us rain instead. More snow is forecast for next week.

 

I might have missed it in a previous post of yours, what was yor itinerary, river and post-cruise or just land trip this time?

 

I am in the process of planning a trip to Alsace in the Spring and plan to revisit Riquewihr. I was there about 17 years ago.

 

notamermaid

 

We just got back from Alsace last week!  We had a lovely gentle snow on the morning that we spent in Riquewihr.  A really pretty village!
After we got back we discovered that Alsace is where my husband's family apparently originally comes from.

[OzNaiNai]

3 hours ago, djh1959 said:

We just got back from Alsace last week!  We had a lovely gentle snow on the morning that we spent in Riquewihr.  A really pretty village!

 

It was over 47.2C (117F) in Adelaide today, so probably some hot weather coming your way. It probably won’t get as hot in Melbourne as here in Adelaide but still over 40C will be a big change from snow in Riquewihr.

 I purchased some cashmere & wool cardigans for my Rhine river cruise and Swiss alps trip in March/April, they arrived today but it’s too hot to try them on.

[notamermaid]

3 hours ago, djh1959 said:

We just got back from Alsace last week!  We had a lovely gentle snow on the morning that we spent in Riquewihr.  A really pretty village!
After we got back we discovered that Alsace is where my husband's family apparently originally comes from.

How nice to find out about your husband's family origins.

 

Alsace and France - that reminds me. The two countries signed a new treatment a few days ago. But that is for another post.

 

notamermaid

 

PS: Valley still covered in yesterday's snow and today's mist.

 

[Marjan1]

On 1/20/2019 at 2:00 PM, Host Jazzbeau said:

One thing we learned this year with the low-water situation is that river cruise lines with only a few ships had a much harder time adapting to the conditions in ways that minimized the disruption for their passengers.  Viking, which had done very badly in the past, was a champ this year because they positioned their vast number of ships so that each cruise could proceed pretty much on schedule with one or two 'ship swaps.'  Crystal on the other hand, despite being the top luxe cruise line, was unable to do this because they only have 5 river ships – they might have been able to position the four identical ones to do ship swaps, but didn't even try [maybe next year they will develop a 'plan B' early enough to allow this].  That would make me very leery of Tauck because they also have a small number of ships.

 

I don’t think the number of ships is the problem. 

 

We travelled the rivers from Budapest to Amsterdam last September, right in the middle of the low water debacle.  

 

We were with Travelmarvel, who had only two ships.  BUT their timetable meant one ship left Budapest the same day as the other left Amsterdam.  They met in the middle (and were supposed to pass each other).  The low water meant one ship stayed on the Danube as far as Passau, the other stayed on the Rhine downstream from Nuremberg.  

 

A simple ship swap mid-point meant our only disruption was packing and a three-hour bus trip.  We fared much better than some travelling with companies with more ships.  

Marg

[gnome12]

It depends where the blockage is. If the blockage is right in the middle, that works. If the blockage is much closer to one end than the other, it doesn't work. If they leave at the same time, each ship needs to take approximately the same time to get to the blockage.

[Host Jazzbeau]

23 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

It depends where the blockage is. If the blockage is right in the middle, that works. If the blockage is much closer to one end than the other, it doesn't work. If they leave at the same time, each ship needs to take approximately the same time to get to the blockage.

 

This sounds like a classic SAT math question! 

[djh1959]

21 hours ago, OzNaiNai said:

 

It was over 47.2C (117F) in Adelaide today, so probably some hot weather coming your way. It probably won’t get as hot in Melbourne as here in Adelaide but still over 40C will be a big change from snow in Riquewihr.

 I purchased some cashmere & wool cardigans for my Rhine river cruise and Swiss alps trip in March/April, they arrived today but it’s too hot to try them on.

Well it got to 43.7 here today which was quite hot enough for me.  

I was at the shops and reached into my bag to find I still had a pair of gloves in there!  Don't think I will need them for quite a while.

Maybe you could try on your cashmere and wool in front of the air conditioner.  At least you don't have long to wait until cooler weather, March will be here before we know it.

[notamermaid]

On 1/22/2019 at 8:06 PM, Texas Tillie said:

notamermaid,

 

Thank you for starting this thread. I'll be on a back to back on the Crystal Bach, Amsterdam-Basel-Amsterdam. Will board April 24 and disembark May 11. Knowing that weather is unpredictable, could you please give me an idea of what to expect as to weather for those dates? Although I'm an American, I can deal with converting temperature from C to F! Thanks!!

Hello Texas Tillie,

 

that is generally a nice time for travelling. End of April into May the temperatures are usually mild. But it varies of course, from day to day and year to year. In general, expect temperatures to be from plus 4 Celsius (during the night and early morning) to on a warm day 20 Celsius. Frost can occur, especially in the hills, but the temperatures always rise above zero during the day. On exceptionally warm days you can get 28 degrees in the afternoon. Rain can be little or frequent, usually not by the bucket load. Storms do happen but are more the exception than the norm during that time frame.

 

We have a relatively mild climate (not the Cornwall/English Riviera mild) along the Rhine but the several microclimates that you will travel through will mean that you can get varying temperatures and weather patterns with quite varying amounts of rain sometimes.

 

For some idea of specific patterns and data for the towns you will be visiting have a look at this: https://www.wetteronline.de/wetterdaten/koeln?pcid=pc_rueckblick_data&gid=10513&pid=p_rueckblick_diagram&sid=StationHistory&iid=10513&month=05&year=2018&period=4&metparaid=TXLD

 

This shows you the highest temperatures in May (4 weeks) 2018 at Cologne airport. Underneath the graph you can change that to lowest temperatures, rain, etc. And change it to April, for example. There might be an English language weather site where you can look back at last year's weather, too.

 

Alternatively, climate data is often given on wikipedia pages like on the one for Amsterdam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam

 

Have a great cruise.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

5 hours ago, djh1959 said:

Well it got to 43.7 here today which was quite hot enough for me.  

I was at the shops and reached into my bag to find I still had a pair of gloves in there!  Don't think I will need them for quite a while.

Maybe you could try on your cashmere and wool in front of the air conditioner.  At least you don't have long to wait until cooler weather, March will be here before we know it.

I feel sorry for you two (and everyone else sweltering in the heat) over there. The heat in Australia is in the news here. So sad to hear about the animals dying in the drought. I had a short visit in the house that I live in from my neighbour's tomcat last night. He looks splendid in his winter fur. It probably makes up a third of his weight.

 

As I cannot send you any snow, here is the webcam showing Cologne cathedral: https://www1.wdr.de/domcam102.html There is still a little bit visible on the roof tops. Just look at the grey sky and imagine it is cold here. Perhaps it helps in the heat in addition to the air conditioning.

 

notamermaid

 

[Texas Tillie]

44 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

Hello Texas Tillie,

 

that is generally a nice time for travelling. End of April into May the temperatures are usually mild. But it varies of course, from day to day and year to year. In general, expect temperatures to be from plus 4 Celsius (during the night and early morning) to on a warm day 20 Celsius. Frost can occur, especially in the hills, but the temperatures always rise above zero during the day. On exceptionally warm days you can get 28 degrees in the afternoon. Rain can be little or frequent, usually not by the bucket load. Storms do happen but are more the exception than the norm during that time frame.

 

We have a relatively mild climate (not the Cornwall/English Riviera mild) along the Rhine but the several microclimates that you will travel through will mean that you can get varying temperatures and weather patterns with quite varying amounts of rain sometimes.

 

For some idea of specific patterns and data for the towns you will be visiting have a look at this: https://www.wetteronline.de/wetterdaten/koeln?pcid=pc_rueckblick_data&gid=10513&pid=p_rueckblick_diagram&sid=StationHistory&iid=10513&month=05&year=2018&period=4&metparaid=TXLD

 

This shows you the highest temperatures in May (4 weeks) 2018 at Cologne airport. Underneath the graph you can change that to lowest temperatures, rain, etc. And change it to April, for example. There might be an English language weather site where you can look back at last year's weather, too.

 

Alternatively, climate data is often given on wikipedia pages like on the one for Amsterdam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam

 

Have a great cruise.

 

notamermaid

 

 

Thank you! I had thought that would be a good time to go. The tulips in The Netherlands will be past prime, but everything else should be great. 

[notamermaid]

It is snowing in the Rhine valley and the perfect winter day to get comfy on the sofa with a hot chocolate, watching telly or in the old-fashioned way listening to stories about elves, fairies and treasures. Here is Deutsche Welle's high five of lost treasures around the world. Close to home for me is of course the story of the treasure of the Nibelungen that was dropped by Hagen into the Rhine. Some of the legend is based around the city of Worms and while most of it is really just a legend some people belief that there is some truth in possibly, potentially, perhaps, hopefully there being a gold treasure somewhere in the Rhine that could be found.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/high-five-the-mysteries-behind-famous-lost-treasures/a-47176455

 

notamermaid

 

 

[KathyK13]

On 1/30/2019 at 8:20 AM, notamermaid said:

It is snowing in the Rhine valley and the perfect winter day to get comfy on the sofa with a hot chocolate, watching telly or in the old-fashioned way listening to stories about elves, fairies and treasures. Here is Deutsche Welle's high five of lost treasures around the world. Close to home for me is of course the story of the treasure of the Nibelungen that was dropped by Hagen into the Rhine. Some of the legend is based around the city of Worms and while most of it is really just a legend some people belief that there is some truth in possibly, potentially, perhaps, hopefully there being a gold treasure somewhere in the Rhine that could be found.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/high-five-the-mysteries-behind-famous-lost-treasures/a-47176455

 

notamermaid

 

Interesting stories!  Thanks for sharing.

 

[notamermaid]

A mystery close to home, and for me as a train enthusiast close to my heart, is the sunken steam engine "Der Rhein". I reported on the failed attempt to retrieve it from the waters of the river it was named after last October. The engine remains hidden but there is hope in the shape of a new clue to its whereabouts. For those who have not followed the story here is my post from last year (#604):

"Breaking news:

the lost steam engine in the Rhine has not been found. The organizers of the rescue operation have confirmed that at the site where they had been digging there is no engine. The excavation has been stopped and everyone is shocked and disappointed.

I as a railway enthusiast am disappointed and feel so sorry for the hunters.

For you cruisers it looks more promising as yesterday's rain has made the level rise at Maxau. But more on that later.

notamermaid"

 

As I promised to keep fourmiler informed about new developments here is the good news. A new fact has come to light that in 1968 divers found a large metallic object when they were employed during a rescue operation for a sunken barge close to the spot where the dig for the steam engine took place last year. The steam engine was allegedly lying at Rhine kilometre 386 and the barge sank at Rhine kilometre 387. As the German newspaper article titled "Sunken engine in Rhine remains a mystery" ends: "Could this be a happy ending?"...

https://www.rnz.de/nachrichten/metropolregion_artikel,-germersheim-versunkene-lok-im-rhein-bleibt-ein-mysterium-_arid,411737.html

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[Fourmiler]

Notamermaid - I replied to your post but somehow it got lost in transit!  So I will try again. Yes, I was interested to hear more about the steam engine.  It sounds as though they will not stop searching until it is found so that is good news.  I wonder if they will perhaps find some of the lost gold while they’re at it.  😁

Our Rhine cruise is not until August but I am already worrying about low water levels, but we’ll just have to “go with the flow”.  In any event we look forward to your updates and will at least be forewarned.