Danube water levels 2024 and similar topics - plus tips and info

[Canal archive]

We’ve had some stupendous thunderstorms here so taught our grandson how to work out how far away they were. Lots and lots of water so hope there’s some left for the big rivers!

[notamermaid]

7 hours ago, RDVIK2016 said:

Nußdorf and nearby villages within Vienna city limits make up a great district to visit a Heuriger wine tavern.

Our ship docked until late at night, so one excursion offered was a Heurigen in Nußdorf.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Pfelling gauge at 304cm. Forecast stable to minimally falling.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

It is raining close to the Alps so the Southern tributaries of the Danube, mostly Lech, Isar, Vils and Salzach will give a higher volume of water to the big river. Lech helps Pfelling, the others do not.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[notamermaid]

Let us have a look at Vienna, the Danube and Nussdorf. Here is the Canal, the river and some spaghetti:

 

So the weir at Nussdorf regulates the Canal. As regards administration part of the system of weir and lock is actually in Brigittenau, the area which you can see in the photo.

 

Let us zoom out:

 

Bottom right, see the spaghetti and above and left of that the weir and lock to the Canal. Above that at the embankment are a couple of ships docked in Nussdorf. I have highlighted the "Silver" with a dot for you. The satellite imaging obviously picked up other ships at the time. But, hang on, on the right there is the "New Danube"? Yes. Vienna has a complicated system of river and Canal and the Danube has been altered to an incredible extent in the last 200 years, creating complete new quarters of housing and an island. You can read the words "Weinbau" and "Buschenschank" on the outskirts of Nussdorf. The former is a vintner, the latter denotes a vintner who temporarily serves his own produce (usually with a limited menu of accompanying foods).

 

Before I went on my river cruise I had never been to Vienna and did not realize we would dock at Nussdorf. Well, it was no big deal to be out of town. Not that pleasant at night but we did not mind after a long day of sightseeing. In the free time to explore the city by ourselves we took the tram into town after lunch and I came across a rather unexpected sight that I was delighted about. But that is for another post.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[RDVIK2016]

16 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Our ship docked until late at night, so one excursion offered was a Heurigen in Nußdorf.

 

notamermaid

 

We made our first visit to Vienna in 2016 on a Viking Romantic Danube cruise. We took the included walking excursion in the morning and in the afternoon went off on our own to Schönbrunn. We took the U4 back into to the city to meet a friend - a resident of Vienna whom I met when he was an exchange student at my school in the USA in 1965. We met at a lovely Viennese cafe and then he drove us out to a Heuriger in Neustift im Walde - a bit to the west of Nußdorf - for an evening meal and wine made from grapes of the vineyard across the road.  What a great day!  RDVIK

[notamermaid]

Pfelling gauge is at 325cm, doing well. Note to those that are new to the topic. Pfelling is the marker in the shallow section of the Danube in Germany where the river between Kelheim and Budapest causes problems in low water first. The figure to consider is 290cm. This has been given by the authorities as a guideline for problems, meaning river cruise ships with the deepest draft are likely to experience problems when Pfelling falls to 290cm. Shallows grow and move and the river is dredged so this can only be a guideline. River traffic in Germany is not banned in low water. Captains decide what is safe to do in which conditions. For flooding this is different, then a river traffic ban is implemented.

 

notamermaid

 

[SueToo]

The Scenic Amber Captain has just confirmed that we have enough water to make it from Regensburg to Nuremberg tomorrow. We hear other vessels are not able to get through so we feel very lucky the ship is shallow draughted and the Captain's willing to go for it!

[notamermaid]

Let us have a look back at August:

 

The month started on a good level. Little to no rain made the level drop continuously, but heavy rain brought the level back up and caused this spike in the graph. Something that is not good for the passage under the bridges. But as we will see, this was not as bad as one may have feared. Towards the end of the month we do see that an autumn low becomes inevitable at some point but so far this has not brought Pfelling to a low that would impact river cruising much.

 

September is now looking more promising than it did on the second. 322cm this lunchtime.

 

For the bridges we can look at Passau:

 

The spike did not go over 600cm, so Passau was good and we can assume that there were few or no problems at Bogen railway bridge.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

It is the weekend again when in Germany many monuments open their doors with events and tours and general viewing. Some of them are not open to the public otherwise or have limited opening hours. Tag des offenen Denkmals shows you the wide range of monuments that have protected status. A bit complicated if you do not speak German but give it a try if you are interested. Here is the map that shows you the places. Put a town into the search bar, perhaps there is something that interests you if you are in the vicinity.

https://www.tag-des-offenen-denkmals.de/programm

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Pfelling gauge has gone down to 305cm. Tomorrow should be another warm day along the German Danube, but then autumn weather will hit us with a drop in temperatures and probably quite a bit of fog in the mornings. We have had the first proper fog on the Rhine this morning.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Canal archive]

Yup Autumn she is coming, lovely spooky misty mornings, beautiful colours and slightly nippier weather, it doesn’t last long so hopefully without extremes enjoy it while you can.

[notamermaid]

I must remember to get ready early soon in the mornings (I am a late riser) and pop down to the riverbank. I have been told that the first mist was already good. It is fun to see more or less nothing and you hear that chugging engine noise. Spooky indeed - and then the ship appears out of the mists. The castles surrounded by fog just about visible are fun, too. I am sure it works on the Danube as well even although it is of course to a lesser extent as the castles are fewer in number.

 

There is a warning for heavy rain over much of Bavaria, it is finally breaking the summer's grip I think. It will be back to socks and jackets, especially for those early morning excursions...

 

notamermaid

 

 

[notamermaid]

About Nussdorf and the reality of the place that is known for its wine connection.

On 9/3/2024 at 12:32 AM, notamermaid said:

Well, it was no big deal to be out of town. Not that pleasant at night but we did not mind after a long day of sightseeing.

The Canal and the railway mean that the river bank is more or less modern with a busy road also following the river. The more appealing parts of the village are a short walk. From the dock you follow the elevated dual carriageway then go under it. And in this video you can see what it looks like, first shot is of the lions on that weir bridge and then the gentleman walks to the tram stop. The tram ride itself is not interesting as regards the scenery. But you can see the route I took (not much has changed since then): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E75QghGnfiI

 

He gets off briefly and then takes a next tram into town. And that is were the interesting architecture appears - and appeared for me eleven years ago. By the way, the video is five years old. Newer videos show more or less the same of the tram line but not the walk in Nussdorf so if that underpass situation is different please tell me.

 

To be continued.

 

notamermaid

 

 

Edited September 9 by notamermaid
added info

[notamermaid]

The rain has gone through Bavaria and more is coming. Pfelling gauge is already back up. Now 316cm.

 

Fun side note: a couple of days ago, as part of work, I happened to meet a gentleman who told me that he had studied in Linz. I stumbled over that for a split second as there is no university in that town. Before I could ask further he smiled and said that he meant the Linz in Austria. He was travelling along the Rhine and was heading downstream, definitely wanting to see "our" Linz here. 😊

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Continued...

 

The story of the architectural feature, a building basically (but an unusual one), and recognizing it on my river cruise goes back to my teenage years. I collected stamps and one of the Austrian ones was this one: https://austria-forum.org/af/Wissenssammlungen/Briefmarken/1959/Wien-Heiligenstadt

It must have left an impression on me visually, not sure why, it just "sticks out of the crowd". I had forgotten about it and had never looked at a map of Vienna so did not know where Heiligenstadt is. So imagine me on the tram that the gentleman took in the video I posted above. We boarded in Nussdorf and wanted to go to the city and its sights. The tram takes you right there. I post the follow-up video to the one above as it is more or less exactly what I saw. In the previous video he stops in Grinzinger Straße and with a following tram continues to Heiligenstadt (I did not stop but went directly to the centre). At 1:26 you see an archway, which already caught my attention and then at 1:56 comes this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK83G1wxV8M

What the...? This was a strong visual experience, something going back a long way and right there in front of me!

 

The gentleman gets off there and wanders around. It means that you can see a bit more of it than I could. It was only a couple of years ago that I actually looked up the story why the building is on a stamp and what the significance of the building called Karl-Marx-Hof is. What makes it stand out from the crowd as well is the fact that is one of the longest - if not the longest - residential building in the world. Does not look long? That is because most of the structure is not iconic but more typical of that decade. You can see the whole thing here on marinetraffic, it really is classified as one single building, more than 1km long:

 

If you are interested, look up this social housing project and its revolutionary (in more ways than one) aspects.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[notamermaid]

Wonder if your ship will dock in Nussdorf? Several of the Anglophone companies appear to almost always dock in the city centre, but perhaps you would like to check? Here is the schedule of the authorities: https://www.donauraum.at/anlegestellen/aktueller-schiffsanlegeplan/

 

notamermaid

 

[bborzell]

 Checking in to this thread in anticipation of October 20 - November 5 Tauck cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest.  We will be on a 110 meter ship.  

 

Friends just returned from same trip (but on larger Viking and started in Budapest) and they had days with upper deck off limits because of high water.

[gnome12]

1 hour ago, bborzell said:

 Checking in to this thread in anticipation of October 20 - November 5 Tauck cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest.  We will be on a 110 meter ship.  

 

Friends just returned from same trip (but on larger Viking and started in Budapest) and they had days with upper deck off limits because of high water.

I don't know about the height of your Tauck ship, but the issue is low bridges, not specifically high water, on the Main (I think it is). If your ship has 3 passenger decks, then it is quite likely that the sun deck will be unavailable for a while.

[notamermaid]

Welcome to Cruisecritic.

1 hour ago, bborzell said:

Checking in to this thread in anticipation of October 20 - November 5 Tauck cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest.  We will be on a 110 meter ship.  

For flooding the length of ship does not really matter but the superstructure does. The height of river cruise ships with three passenger decks means that they can run into problems at low bridges, the higher the river level is the worse it is of course. For the Main river it is actually typical to have the sundeck closed. Ships with two passenger decks do not face that problem as much. Note that I count without the sundeck.

 

So here is a long ship with three passenger decks (for eating and sleeping) plus sun deck, the Emerald European ships design. These decks have even levels, meaning continuous from bow to stern.

So, what you will see normally online is the deck plan saying that there are four decks, i.e. the sun deck is counted.Here is Viking:

Then you have the split-level design. This may extent to the sun deck being lower in one section. This means then that you can often stay on one part while the other is closed due to the low bridges.

 

Or you can have the ships with just two decks for eating and sleeping, that is then a three deck ship including the sun deck. CroisiEurope has a fair number of those.

 

With Tauck I see that the fleet is a mix of 110m and 135m but of the ones serving Rhine, Main and Danube they all appear to have four levels.

 

I have no information on individual heights of ships.

 

1 hour ago, bborzell said:

Friends just returned from same trip (but on larger Viking and started in Budapest) and they had days with upper deck off limits because of high water.

To some extend the captain and crew can adjust how deep the ship sits in the water so that gives a bit extra headroom under bridges. In high water it is very likely that this is not enough. Often, the sun deck is closed for a longer period as there are too many bridges to constantly adjust the sun deck (the railings may be down so they cannot allow you to walk up there).

 

Hope this helps the odd person to understand the situation.

 

Hopefully for your cruise the river will be in the perfect range of levels for you to enjoy a most splendid journey through Europe.

 

notamermaid

 

Edit: Thank you @gnome12 for your comments. I took a while to write my post so did not see yours.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 09:28 PM by notamermaid
added info

[moonriver54]

FWIW...here's a photo of the Avalon Tranquility II with the upper deck cleared/lowered for steaming on the River Main during our cruise in May 2024.  The ship's wheel house has been hydraulically lowered in to its "recess" in the upper deck.

[tarheel423]

We were on Tauck Treasures in July from Bucharest to Amsterdam. The upper deck was closed 5 days due to low bridges - beginning the morning we docked in Regensburg. It reopened when we got to Rüdesheim. The area in front of the wheelhouse remained open.

[AnhaltER1960]

There are warnings of massive rainfalls in Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czechia, Poland and south east Germany for the next days. Simulations forecast 300+ mm rain within 4 days (that is usually 3 to 4 months worth of rainfall).
Flooding and river traffic disruptions are likely. The Danube in Austria and Hungary (and possibly downstram) will be affected, possibly also the Danube in Germany, the Elbe and the Odra.

[Canal archive]

I’m not surprised mainland Europe is most probably getting what we’ve had on and off for the past two weeks just an amazing amount of water, deluges. It’s not just continuous it’s continuously heavy, inches whoops centimetres in hours not days. The ground water levels are really high as it cannot drain away. Don’t get caught out in it, it hurts. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

7 minutes ago, AnhaltER1960 said:

Simulations forecast 300+ mm rain within 4 days

Somehow it sounds even more dramatic when we call it 'a foot of rain.'  😁