The Elbe river 2022 - not just water levels

[loriva]

17 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

Which city has more bridges than Amsterdam

 

Hamburg, a city on the Elbe?

 

We're planning on starting our Viking Christmas Markets on the Elbe journey in Hamburg.  DH and I are big fans of The Beatles, so want to visit some of the sites in the city where they polished their style.

[notamermaid]

7 minutes ago, loriva said:

Hamburg, a city on the Elbe?

Yes. Well done! That was quick. The twist: Hamburg city official website claims Hamburg has more bridges than Amsterdam and Venice combined. Which is a lot but that claim is also a bit "unfair" as Hamburg is larger in size than Venice and Amsterdam combined.

 

Aah, the Beatles and Hamburg - legendary!

 

notamermaid

 

[CPT Trips]

3 hours ago, loriva said:

 

Hamburg, a city on the Elbe?

 

We're planning on starting our Viking Christmas Markets on the Elbe journey in Hamburg.  DH and I are big fans of The Beatles, so want to visit some of the sites in the city where they polished their style.

My niece, a Hamburg resident, suggested this tour to us. http://www.hempels-musictour.de/en/ We attended a live virtual tour with her during the lockdown.

[loriva]

3 hours ago, CPT Trips said:

My niece, a Hamburg resident, suggested this tour to us. http://www.hempels-musictour.de/en/ We attended a live virtual tour with her during the lockdown.

 

Yep, have already contacted Stefanie about doing a tour.  Looking forward to it--although visiting Hamburg in December will be a shock to the system for us Florida residents!

[notamermaid]

Nice to see the Elbe still doing okay as regards water levels. Dresden gauge is at 136cm this afternoon. Mean low water is set at 75cm by the authorities.

 

So let us continue with looking at Hamburg. I am sure I posted this around the time when the video came out but here it is to remind us of the sights of this major German city and port: https://www.dw.com/en/flying-guide-hamburg/av-50184775

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Time to have a look at how the Elbe has been doing lately:

There have been a couple of spikes with good water levels at Dresden but overall the trend is downward. Over the weekend the level got quite low but rain has brought the level up again. So this is overall not too bad.

 

Last sailing of Viking is on 7 July, then the itinerary stops for the Summer. CroisiEurope sails the Elbe into the Czech Republic in Summer but the itinerary is not exactly what you would expect...

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[AnhaltER1960]

Weather forecasts in Germany predict some real summer in the next days with no rain and temperatures well in the nineties (maybe even hitting 100+ Fahrenheit), ship captains have a sceptical look on the water levels of the Elbe. They have been on the low side recently, though still sufficient for sailing, as the graph @notamermaidrecently posted shows. The general downward trend continued, but some rainfall in the Czech republic brings some relief with a stabilizing wave. As Viking will pause their Elbe sailing from early July until September, they might just be fine until then. In the last years, Dresden level below 75 cm was an indication for trouble.

PEGELONLINE1506.html

Edited June 15, 2022 by AnhaltER1960
insert graph did not work

[notamermaid]

Already hot here along the Rhine. Temperature in Mannheim right now is 30 Celsius. Dresden is 27 Celsius. The Rhine tends to be warmer than the East but in this heat the difference is not much of help to keep more water in the river.

 

@AnhaltER1960 Hope you have a shady place to keep cool in.

 

On 6/9/2022 at 3:34 PM, notamermaid said:

CroisiEurope sails the Elbe into the Czech Republic in Summer but the itinerary is not exactly what you would expect...

CroisiEurope made the clever decision of not sailing the shallow stretch of the river between Dresden and Magdeburg in Summer. You can sail on the Havel and Elbe plus the canals to get to the West of Germany and Amsterdam, or take a trip on the Elbe and Vltava rivers. To be correct, the ship does not actually sail in Germany at all (my earlier mistake). This cruise just takes in the Elbe at the Vltava confluence. Then you can take an excursion to Dresden from there. A great albeit short itinerary for those who wish to explore Prague not as a pre or post cruise extension: https://www.croisieuroperivercruises.com/cruise/prague-dresden-castles-bohemia-spectacular-cruise-elbe-vltava-rivers-classic#

 

notamermaid

 

[AnhaltER1960]

Now it has been too hot and dry in the Elbe water system, the rainfalls last weekend sent only a shorttimed wave downriver. Viking have switched into dry-cruise mode and are not sailing any longer. Passengers are bussed instead between the ships.

[notamermaid]

12 hours ago, AnhaltER1960 said:

Viking have switched into dry-cruise mode and are not sailing any longer.

A real pity, but in the current heat, I somewhat had the feeling it would happen. As mentioned before, Viking and the shipyard did a great job designing and constructing the modern ships for the Elbe, but the river has its own mind.

 

notamermaid

 

[retep55555]

Does anyone know if there is any compensation for not river cruising due to lack of water?  I’m not that fussed on being bussed around for the price that we have paid.  We are due to go on the Elbe next week.  We had rain yesterday and this morning in Prague but not sure it will make any difference.  Very disappointed!

[Canal archive]

Not usually it’s covered in the small print!

[notamermaid]

1 hour ago, retep55555 said:

We had rain yesterday and this morning in Prague but not sure it will make any difference.

It should get a bit better, Schöna gauge at the border has seen a jump today. But if it is good enough when the wave reaches Dresden tomorrow is a big question. Hope it works out. Refund or compensation is tricky, I agree with Canal archive.

 

notamermaid

 

[Fouremco]

1 hour ago, retep55555 said:

Does anyone know if there is any compensation for not river cruising due to lack of water?  I’m not that fussed on being bussed around for the price that we have paid.  We are due to go on the Elbe next week.  We had rain yesterday and this morning in Prague but not sure it will make any difference.  Very disappointed!

I imagine that it varies with the cruiseline. This is Scenic's compensation for disruptions:

 

[retep55555]

Thanks everyone for your replies…. We will keep our fingers crossed then deal with what we have.  Hopefully some more rain!  

[notamermaid]

Brief news: the wave of water that I reported about yesterday has reached Dresden nicely, level there now at 141cm. Already on the way down, though. Still, better than it had been in the previous days. Hope Viking can make it work.

 

notamermaid

 

[retep55555]

On 6/26/2022 at 5:40 PM, notamermaid said:

Brief news: the wave of water that I reported about yesterday has reached Dresden nicely, level there now at 141cm. Already on the way down, though. Still, better than it had been in the previous days. Hope Viking can make it work.

 

notamermaid

 

Let’s hope so… we had a storm tonight in Prague.

[AnhaltER1960]

On 6/27/2022 at 11:38 PM, retep55555 said:

Let’s hope so… we had a storm tonight in Prague.

Storm does not fill a river - rain does :-). But although you might not like the weather in Prague right now, that is exactly the region, which needs rain to fill the Elbe for your cruise. And from the data I see, the Elbe is looking much better than last week. So, while not being a Viking captain, I dare the forecast that sailings should be possible next week.

[retep55555]

14 minutes ago, AnhaltER1960 said:

Storm does not fill a river - rain does :-). But although you might not like the weather in Prague right now, that is exactly the region, which needs rain to fill the Elbe for your cruise. And from the data I see, the Elbe is looking much better than last week. So, while not being a Viking captain, I dare the forecast that sailings should be possible next week.

That’s good news.  Raining here in Prague now.  We are happy for rain as it’s been so hot! We board our cruise today and we’re told yesterday enough water for the first 3 days so fingers crossed for after that. Thanks for your report.  I think the boat needs a minimum of 75 for passage.

[notamermaid]

Good to hear. This is the graph at Dresden:

103cm right now.

 

Have a great cruise @retep55555.

 

notamermaid

 

[AnhaltER1960]

On 6/29/2022 at 8:00 AM, retep55555 said:

We are happy for rain as it’s been so hot! We board our cruise today and we’re told yesterday enough water for the first 3 days so fingers crossed for after that. Thanks for your report.  I think the boat needs a minimum of 75 for passage.

@retep55555  Are you cruising on the Beyla which sails into Wittenberg tomorrow/Sunday ? Must have been plenty of rain in Bohemia recently, from the water amount, which runs down the Elbe right now...

 

The Viking ships on the Elbe Astrild and Beyla have a draft of roundabout 85 cm (as well as the Elbe Princesse of CroisiEurope). The readings of the water level do NOT give the depth of the navigation channel; they are just a reading of the water level against a fixed scale, which makes the interpretation a bit difficult. But for now youre fine, as are any cruises of Viking before the summer break.

[loriva]

On 6/29/2022 at 2:00 AM, retep55555 said:

That’s good news.  Raining here in Prague now.  We are happy for rain as it’s been so hot! We board our cruise today and we’re told yesterday enough water for the first 3 days so fingers crossed for after that. Thanks for your report.  I think the boat needs a minimum of 75 for passage.

 

Hope to hear about your experience,  We are booked on the Viking Astrild for a Christmas on the Elbe cruise in December.  Weather and water levels will, presumably, be a little different then.  😉

[notamermaid]

With the river levels being fine on the Elbe (perhaps a little surprisingly), Dresden being at 149cm, let us relax and have a look at another company and ship that also sails the river northwards  and the Canals westwards, similarly to Saga UK: https://www.nicko-cruises.de/en/fleet/flussschiffe/ms-thurgau-saxonia

nicko cruises charters the Thurgau Saxonia (Thurgau refers to a Swiss company). Note that they also use the ship to sail East and North. An unusual direction with its own appeal.

 

It is important to note that nicko only goes so far in accommodating English-language passengers and I highly recommend checking this before you consider booking.

 

With German language skills, an open mind for new areas hardly sailed and a willingness to forgo the  luxury of a 135m ship these I am sure are enjoyable itineraries on a pleasant ship.

 

The locks, canals and depth of the river preventing large ships from sailing, all ships, being it German or English charters, will be similar in size. Basic amenities should be similar, too.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

So the Danube is too low in Bavaria for large river cruise ships and the Rhine is beginning to struggle to keep enough water in the navigation channel to float the large river cruise ships (no major delays yet, but a certain risk is there). The Elbe should be low too, right? Not quite. While 103cm is not that great at Dresden, it is not as low as correlation (to the other rivers) would make us assume. An usual twist of fortune.

 

But Viking has stopped sailing for the Summer anyway and I cannot find any German river cruises sailing in July or August either. May I have missed one?

 

The MS Junker Jörg is certainly not on the Elbe, she is busy East and North of Berlin.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

So, what struck me as unusual is indeed unusual and some people have had a hand in it. I will explain. But first, the Elbe at Dresden. The level has steadily fallen and now correlates with the other rivers again. 65cm is really low:

 

According to the BAfG, what happened at the Elbe was not all nature's doing. Here is the explanation for @AnhaltER1960 . Quote: "Aus technischen Gründen (Talsperren-Bauarbeiten) unterliegt die Wasserführung der Elbe derzeit stärkerer anthropogener Veränderung und entspricht weniger den na-
türlichen Abflussbildungsprozessen."

 

This basically means that "anthropos", here male and possibly a few female engineers and workmen, have been fiddling with levers, bolts, steel and concrete in the Czech Republic at the reservoir and altered the volume of water the river sends to Germany.

 

notamermaid