Rhine water levels 2023 and similar topics

[notamermaid]

The level at Cologne had been stable for a few hours but now I see the tiniest reduction in figures. Tentatively I would say that the peak was at 808cm and the level is now falling.

 

Further upstream, Maxau gauge has gone down to 694cm. It looks as if the level will fall further and leave official flooding status and not return there this year.

 

The Lower Rhine has the Ruhr (which is very high) and the Lippe (which is flooding) as tributaries of note but the high volumes there will most likely not cause major problems for river traffic. The Lower Rhine is very high but looks to be able to cope. All stations are on navigational flood mark I but are forecast to stay well under navigational flood mark II.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Cologne gauge peaked indeed at 808cm. All that water is still on its way to the Netherlands of course and we see the strongly elevated levels reflected on the map with the Dutch gauges now partly showing up in orange. It is mostly the Ijssel:

 

notamermaid

 

 

[notamermaid]

Report from the Netherlands about the Ijssel river:

https://nltimes.nl/2023/12/27/deventer-bracing-high-water-ijssel-river-will-tense

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

The Upper Rhine valley is staying okay. Maxau gauge is still expected to fall below official flooding status and remain there until the beginning of the year. The river remains fairly high though. With the next weather pattern that will bring much rain we can anticipate a rise but for now that does not look too significant (time frame 3-5 January). Emmerich gauge, the last one in Germany before the Netherlands, has peaked. So the German Rhine will soon be "out of the woods". The situation in other parts of Germany remains more critical.

 

The Maas (Meuse) river by the way is also elevated but thankfully is not flooding as much as other rivers. It contributes to the flooding in the Netherlands. If the large Maas was carrying even more water the Netherlands would have an even bigger problem.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[ural guy]

We sailed the middle Rhine yesterday, very lucky with no rain and 45-48f, definitely colder at the end.  We were wrapped up nicely on the top deck for over 3 hours.

 

Boppard and a few other spots to show the water level.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for all the updates.  I kept my mouth shut for a few weeks about the water levels, not wanting to needlessly worry them. My travel party is from Syracuse, Rochester and Watertown NY.  Thanks to Lake Ontario, this weather hasn't gotten us down.

[moonriver54]

Great photos!  Thanks for posting.  What a stunning difference from what we saw during early October when we were concerned about LOW water levels on the Rhine!  Glad it all worked out for you and your fellow travelers!  

 

Happy New Year to everybody.

[sharkster77]

3 hours ago, ural guy said:

We sailed the middle Rhine yesterday, very lucky with no rain and 45-48f, definitely colder at the end.  We were wrapped up nicely on the top deck for over 3 hours.

 

Boppard and a few other spots to show the water level.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for all the updates.  I kept my mouth shut for a few weeks about the water levels, not wanting to needlessly worry them. My travel party is from Syracuse, Rochester and Watertown NY.  Thanks to Lake Ontario, this weather hasn't gotten us down.

WOW--what a contrast to our view of Pfaltzgrafenstein Castle from October 2019:

 

 

[notamermaid]

Netherlands rivers update: https://nltimes.nl/2023/12/28/concern-record-high-water-levels-netherlands

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

This is "mid-range" as regards water levels, but it was a cold day instead with the snow that had fallen a couple of days prior still on the ground. End of December 2014, a grey day and photo taken from the train:

 

This year instead we got all the rain, virtually no snow in the valley (apart from a few minutes on one day (sort of)) and too warm temperatures that led to flooding.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

If you are new to the topic of river levels on the Rhine you may wonder if this type of flooding is normal, especially at this time of year, I mean November and December. It is normal to more unusual, it was an occurrence of every two to five years to nearly every ten years, depending on gauge. What is certainly unusual is the time of year. We do get high volumes of water after downpours and flooding can happen even in summer to a small scale but mostly it is a late winter/early spring occurrence. Here is the graph for Worms that shows 2023 in context of a period of forty years (1981 to 2021):

 

Blue is 2023, red is the maximums, green is the means, black is the lows. You can see the spike in November from which the river could not recover enough and the continued bad weather in December caused the graph to exceed on a couple of days what had been recorded in the forty year period.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

The more difficult navigation in these high water levels contributed to an accident at Speyer. A river cruise ship tried to dock. The docking did not go well and the ship hit a so-called dolphin at a pier. There is considerable damage to the ship but no one was injured. The name of the ship has not been disclosed.

 

https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/117719/5681361

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Maxau gauge has finally fallen below official flooding status, that important threshold is marked by a blinking letter H on the Baden-Württemberg map and is now off. The only H left on that map is at Wertheim on the Main. We will see the level rise at Maxau again when more rain sets in but that is for next year and for river cruising already out of season (and interest).

 

Emmerich at the border to the Netherlands will fall below flood mark I tomorrow and hopefully when the Lippe has discharged its high volume as well as minor other rivers in the larger tripoint region (Belgium/Netherlands/Germany), the Netherlands will see better conditions, especially along the Ijssel, again. I see that the gauge at Deventer there has already lost a few centimetres.

 

Soon it will be time to look back at December and wrap up the year. As I have hinted at in my post about Worms it was an unusual Christmas market season.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by notamermaid
grammar

[RDVIK2016]

4 hours ago, notamermaid said:

The more difficult navigation in these high water levels contributed to an accident at Speyer. A river cruise ship tried to dock. The docking did not go well and the ship hit a so-called dolphin at a pier. There is considerable damage to the ship but no one was injured. The name of the ship has not been disclosed.

 

https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/117719/5681361

 

notamermaid

 

I would like to see a photo from outboard to see if there was any damage below that deck.  If not it shouldn't take much to cut out and patch that plate with the hole punched through. If they have to perform underwater work to repair that dolphin and/or bring in a crane that might be the more complicated job.  

[notamermaid]

Here is a question for you past cruisers on the Rhine. I have read today - little more than the headline as the article is behind a we-want-your-data wall/pay wall - a newspaper article about river cruise ships now docking in Nierstein. This had made it into the news as it is a recent phenomenon, i.e. more ships are stopping there than used to. Townspeople think it may have something to do with the recent flooding that as we know disrupted normal itineraries.

 

I wrote about Nierstein quite some time ago in the following link, I included the town in my list of the lesser known places: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2516698-rhine-beyond-the-standard-ports/page/2/

 

Has anyone docked in Nierstein recently and was it an itinerary change?

 

notamermaid

 

 

[hbbae]

Yes, the Amadeus Imperial docked in Nierstein on Dec 16, and yes, it was an itinerary change.  The ship reversed direction after docking in Heidelberg, and the cruise became a bus tour after that.  The original itinerary was Düsseldorf to Basel.

[CDNPolar]

We are on the Alruna from Amsterdam to Basel NOW, and we are so lucky that we have not had to change ships or be bussed.  We have hear of parts of the Rhine where one cruise changed ships twice.  We have had minor inconveniences - MINOR - only.  Docking a couple of locations that were 10 minutes away because the docks were under water where we should have docked.

 

Still, there are so many people grumbling about these things.   River cruises have this risk Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.  You can have low or high water levels.  When you leave for a River Cruise you just have to understand that you may have water levels that are impact your experience.  Rather, all these things are part of the experience.

[notamermaid]

1 hour ago, CDNPolar said:

We are on the Alruna from Amsterdam to Basel NOW, and we are so lucky that we have not had to change ships or be bussed.

I had not noticed earlier: ural guy is also on the Alruna.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

1 hour ago, CDNPolar said:

Still, there are so many people grumbling about these things.   River cruises have this risk Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.  You can have low or high water levels.  When you leave for a River Cruise you just have to understand that you may have water levels that are impact your experience.  Rather, all these things are part of the experience.

This year has proved more than others that there is no way round that. There has been low water, then unusually there was prolonged flooding. There have been accidents as well (a few only thankfully), minor with river cruise ships, barges/lock incidents have impacted travelling more.

 

You, ural guy and everyone else on the Alruna have indeed been a bit lucky. As I wrote, river traffic got close to being banned at Cologne when you were there.

 

Have a great time up there on "my" river and a pleasant journey home.

 

notamermaid

 

[CDNPolar]

5 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

This year has proved more than others that there is no way round that. There has been low water, then unusually there was prolonged flooding. There have been accidents as well (a few only thankfully), minor with river cruise ships, barges/lock incidents have impacted travelling more.

 

You, ural guy and everyone else on the Alruna have indeed been a bit lucky. As I wrote, river traffic got close to being banned at Cologne when you were there.

 

Have a great time up there on "my" river and a pleasant journey home.

 

notamermaid

 

You have no idea how lucky we feel and are!

 

We flew in expecting busses and hotels could be part of this and we have sailed all the way through. 

[notamermaid]

It is still too warm for this time of year in the Rhine valley. Ten degrees Celsius is not normal. So we will continue to see rain rather than snow on already saturated soil. Not good, especially in the Netherlands: https://nltimes.nl/2023/12/29/water-levels-major-rivers-will-rise-early-january

 

The rainy weather will also come to Germany but overall the impact does not look major at Maxau. The outlook towards 3 January has not changed much, if anything a little for the better.

 

notamermaid

 

[Pushka]

3 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

We are on the Alruna from Amsterdam to Basel NOW, and we are so lucky that we have not had to change ships or be bussed.  We have hear of parts of the Rhine where one cruise changed ships twice.  We have had minor inconveniences - MINOR - only.  Docking a couple of locations that were 10 minutes away because the docks were under water where we should have docked.

 

Still, there are so many people grumbling about these things.   River cruises have this risk Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.  You can have low or high water levels.  When you leave for a River Cruise you just have to understand that you may have water levels that are impact your experience.  Rather, all these things are part of the experience.

Then with respect as many cruises were significantly impacted,( no cruising for four nights but stuck in an industrial port next to another boat so no escaping on the balcony, and multiple ports lost) then I don't think a comment made about 'grumbling' is in any way fair.   I have researched issues in spring and summer (flood and low water) but not once did I read anything about flooding at this time of the year.  I travelled from Australia at significant cost for something that we would never want to do again. 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Pushka

[CDNPolar]

1 hour ago, Pushka said:

Then with respect as many cruises were significantly impacted,( no cruising for four nights but stuck in an industrial port next to another boat so no escaping on the balcony, and multiple ports lost) then I don't think a comment made about 'grumbling' is in any way fair.   I have researched issues in spring and summer (flood and low water) but not once did I read anything about flooding at this time of the year.  I travelled from Australia at significant cost for something that we would never want to do again. 

With respect, your research did not show that bad weather typically happens at this time of year - but it happened.  There is always risk with river cruising any time of the year.  I think you will find that the cruise line will never guarantee a flawless sailing.  
 

And regarding the balcony, even if you docked each night where you were supposed to you could have a ship beside you on a river cruise. 

[Pushka]

28 minutes ago, CDNPolar said:

With respect, your research did not show that bad weather typically happens at this time of year - but it happened.  There is always risk with river cruising any time of the year.  I think you will find that the cruise line will never guarantee a flawless sailing.  
 

And regarding the balcony, even if you docked each night where you were supposed to you could have a ship beside you on a river cruise. 

Rafting yes. Not day and night. Depressing. 

[moonriver54]

2 hours ago, notamermaid said:

It is still too warm for this time of year in the Rhine valley. Ten degrees Celsius is not normal. So we will continue to see rain rather than snow on already saturated soil. Not good, especially in the Netherlands: https://nltimes.nl/2023/12/29/water-levels-major-rivers-will-rise-early-january

 

The rainy weather will also come to Germany but overall the impact does not look major at Maxau. The outlook towards 3 January has not changed much, if anything a little for the better.

 

notamermaid

 

@notamermaid --  Perhaps a bit off-topic....however if you don't mind...as best I recall, last winter was extremely dry in Central Europe, with many locations in the Alps having almost no snow.  Although I understand it's been unseasonably warm this winter, has all this moisture since the end of October brought larger quantities of snow to the Alps?  If so, is it accumulating or melting because of the warmer temperatures?

[notamermaid]

1 hour ago, Pushka said:

Rafting yes. Not day and night. Depressing. 

It really could not be researched, this season has - as I pointed out in the post with the graph - been exceptional. Having followed your experience in these threads, especially in Strasbourg, I will say that how the itinerary was handled under the circumstances was not good enough and occasionally - as in this case in my opinion - a re-routing or brutal end can be more rewarding for a customer.

 

By the way, forgot the mention this a few days ago, re-routing happened with A-Rosa for example. An itinerary of theirs did not even go up the Rhine. The whole river cruise was changed to focus on the Lower Rhine and the Netherlands. Perhaps not what one may want to see but the ship actually sailed proper, everyday, with a good docking location. Call it a "tulip time would have been on the fly turned Christmas market experience" cruise. Or something. Oh, and the Christmas markets and towns along the Main can be very good, too, one does not need to go to the Lowlands... Why not stop at Mainz, Wiesbaden and Frankfurt next time Maxau is blocked off, dear (insert name of river cruise company)? The logistics are not easy but, my goodness, in decent conditions they manage to sail from Amsterdam to Budapest.

 

notamermaid