water levels on the danube?

[bz]

Does anyone out there have any info on the current water levels for the Prague to Budapest river trips? I'm hoping we'll not be doing a bus tour instead of riverboat. So far in surfing the net I haven't been able to find current info. We are scheduled to leave 4/28 for a GCT trip on the Rhadsody.

[steamboats]

bz,

 

Check this thread

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=328614

 

I´ve listed some websites there for the water levels (and webcams). I´ve listed Germany/Bavaria and Austria (along the Danube river).

 

Here are some more:

 

http://stavy.pvl.cz/dispecink/verze4/en/index.htm Czech Republik, Prague

 

http://www.povodia.sk/dunaj/en/index.htm Slovakia / Danube River

 

So far I haven´t found a similar site for Hungary. But you can easily check the webcam. The road along the river is o.k. right now, so water levels are down and ships can dock again.

 

steamboats

[bz]

Just wanted to thank you for the post - very helpful & reassuring. Went to one of the webcasts & you can do a 360 panorama. Now we're really counting the days!

[ree442]

We just returned from a great cruise on the Peter Deilmann Danube Princess. We were able to travel all the way from Passau to Budapest and back and made all our port calls, but in a different order. As far as this portion of the Danube goes, there were no real problems.

[GlobeMan]

The Danube is at its highest level since 1895.

 

A state of emergency has been declared in 10 regions of Serbia. Romania and Bulgaria have also been severely hit.

[steamboats]

Yes, the floods moved on to Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. Large areas are already flooded and dams broke. They are thinking about flooding areas in a controlled manner to relieve the dams of the water pressure.

 

The classic cruise routes are fine. In this time of the year the boats usually don´t go farther downriver than Budapest. But a cruise down to Bucharest / Constanta / Oltenita won´t be possible right now.

 

steamboats

[tban]

this link gives you hourly updated information about the waterlevels on the Danube. look at the Passau numbers.If the level goes up there, it will also rise downstreams. As of now they are indicating "Hochwasserstufe 1" - yellow - which is the lowest high water alert - and if you look at the historical data - normal for the season. However the indicators point up, which means the water is rising. As long as it does not go over red alert shipping traffic is supposed to be alright.

http://www.wetteronline.de/dldlpeg.htm

tban

[Darrell6t]

I just returned from a Grand Circle Vienna to Amsterdam cruise, starting in Vienna. I gather that the level varies enough from day to day to make any prediction for April 28 impossible. We were lucky that our ship, the River Melody, was above the lowest bridge in the Danube, so our only bus segment was from Vienna to Kelheim. And then we took the buses from Regensberg to Passau. But all the rest wa on the ship. Another group was not so lucky, as their ship was in Vienna and could not go very far on the Danube unless the water level fell.

[steamboats]

Darrell6t,

 

You´re absolutely right that water levels on the Danube river can change very quickly. And in a flood situation it´s really hard to make any predictions. Currently all levels are down to normal and the floods have gone downriver to Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria. Right now the stretch between Budapest and Kehlheim (after Kehlheim you enter the canal) is fine. So if there are no heavy rains (which we had in late March/early April) and if there´s no unusual heat wave in the mountains (which still do have lots of snow) the situation doesn´t change much. A normals slow snow melt won´t affect the rivers too much.

 

Here´s another map for whole Germany. Click on the rivers for further details. Unfortunately the website is German only but you can see the numbers and the changes (+ or -) in the brackets.

 

http://www.elwis.de/gewaesserkunde/Wasserstaende/Karte/index.html

 

steamboats