Rhine water levels 2018 and similar topics

[nmillsrn]

I will also be travelling on the Opal starting September 5. Leaving Toronto on the 4th in the early evening Hoping for rain until we arrive. Fingers crossed for water levels to be sufficient for cruise to stay on course.

[Jupiter14]

I am on the Avalon Visionary, currently in Mannhein. We got through the Rhine Gorge yesterday without incident and have not had an issue the entire trip from Amsterdam down the Moselle. None are expected for Strasbourg, Breisach and Basel.

[RJKAJ]

I am on the Avalon Visionary, currently in Mannhein. We got through the Rhine Gorge yesterday without incident and have not had an issue the entire trip from Amsterdam down the Moselle. None are expected for Strasbourg, Breisach and Basel.

 

Thanks for the good news.

We leave Sept.5 on a similar cruise with Scenic from Amsterdam to Basel, assuming on the Ruby not the Jasper as initially booked. Has anyone heard from Scenic?

[notamermaid]

Good morning,

 

Jupiter14, Thank you for the good news.

 

 

The river levels have risen. In fact, Maxau is on the way down again after having peaked at 448cm (!) during the afternoon yesterday. The current figures look reassuring for - finally - a pleasant week of sailing for everyone as the levels from Worms onwards further downstream are still on the rise. Here they are: Maxau 422cm, Kaub 94cm, Koblenz 83cm. As I indicated, Kaub and Koblenz are still rising. The navigation channel at Kaub is now a good 2m deep which means that every river cruise ship should make it (hopefully, no guarantee from me) through the Rhine gorge.

 

 

The problems that remain this week of course are ships queueing at locks, slowed traffic due to the still low levels and ships being at the wrong end of the river due to ship swaps.

 

But for now let us rejoice.

 

Remains just for me to say: have a pleasant trip, all those that are on a river cruise this week. You have earned your holiday, after all that nerve-wracking water-level-watching.

 

:):)

 

notamermaid

[Boswalls]

On board Scenic Jewel boarded at Strasbourg not Basel. This was apparently due to a predicted 7 hour trip through a lock which the captain opted very wisely not to do as it would have to have been repeated again tomorrow. A 2 hour coach trip wasn’t too painful.

Ship is really beautiful & staff great. AND the sun is shining. Maybe it will only rain at night!

Also, Ben told lots of ships in Basel. Have they made the trip,down the Danube?

Anne

[WST]

Hi fellow Rhine River cruisers we sailed from Amsterdam on 30th Aug on the Lofn and it has been one of the best experiences in my life. There were fears when we set off that we would have to swap ships mid cruise but in spite of only 12 inches of water in middle Rhine we made it through so with the prospect of rain further up the Rhine those of you sailing from now should be fine. Weather is overcast and a bit more sun and blue sky when we were passing the Rhine gorge would have been perfect but hey i am so..oo thrilld we have sailed this far

Service , food , excursions on Viking have been tops . Good walking shoes highly necessary as cobbled streets and paths can take quite a beating on your feet

I will be sorry to leave this ship on the 6th Sept and i hope that all of you taking similar cruises will have a wonderful time

[Wannawander]

Are you doing the Paris to Swiss Alps (reverse order)? We are doing that in early October, Paris to Zurich. Would love to hear about it when you get back. TIA

 

Yes, we are doing Swiss Alps to Paris, arriving in Zurich on Sept 15 and boarding the Hild on the 17th. No pre or post or optional excursions. We have been to Switzerland and France before and have seen lots and just need to chill on this trip due to a very stressful last two years. I will be happy to post as is possible during and after!

[gracebest]

Yes, we are doing Swiss Alps to Paris, arriving in Zurich on Sept 15 and boarding the Hild on the 17th. No pre or post or optional excursions. We have been to Switzerland and France before and have seen lots and just need to chill on this trip due to a very stressful last two years. I will be happy to post as is possible during and after!

 

 

Thanks! We have also spent lots of time in Europe, but it's been quite a few years ago. We'll be in France about a week before the cruise. Enjoy your trip -- looking forward to hearing about it.

[notamermaid]

Let us all take a deep breath and a sigh of relief and enjoy the latest figures :) : Maxau 412cm, Kaub 116cm, Koblenz 105cm. Plenty of room this week under the keel for all river cruise ships! But if you still read about low water on the Rhine in the media they will be correct as the river is still low for barges.

 

It looks really good for this week. Levels will drop again in the Upper and Middle Rhine valley again towards the weekend but not that much that it should worry us for now. Next week? Nobody knows and predictions only take us as far as Monday.

 

What else has been happening along the river? Last Friday evening an excursion boat with celebrating party guests onboard scraped the ground in Cologne. Six passengers had minor injuries and were taken to hospital.

 

A suspicious object in a marina South of Bonn turned out to be a discarded safe or other metal object, not a WWII bomb for a change, luckily. However, at Neuwied, North of Koblenz, an American WWII bomb was discovered in the Rhine near the palace park. As the built-up area is distant enough an evacuation is not necessary. The bomb will be "defused" in a controlled explosion on Thursday evening.

 

For a far happier discovery we need to look at Cologne. A recent building site has caused international attraction as it is believed that archaeologist there have found the oldest library in Germany. The discovery was even covered by a BBC article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45029960

 

Vintners along the Rhine valley are dealing with a very early harvest, the wine will likely be good, but with too little rain, the harvest will not be plentiful.

 

This coming Sunday will see the annual European heritage days in Germany as "Tag des offenen Denkmals" where you can visit interesting buildings and places not normally open to the public, or just at restricted times.

 

On 15 September volunteers will gather together at the Rhine's embankment in the five countries for "Rhine clean-up day" to literally get rid of dirt, debris and what humans have thrown into the river. They certainly have got their work cut out...

 

 

notamermaid

[TeamOR]

Wonderful to hear such positive news from the Rhine! Have been following the info in this forum, and find it so interesting and helpful; thanks to all for your insights. We will be first-time cruisers on the Rhine Getaway (Basel-Amsterdam) aboard Viking Tialfi departing on Sept 15.

[notamermaid]

TeamOR,

 

 

welcome to CC. Good to read you have been getting some valuable information from this forum. Just in case you have not looked at them yet, I recommend the stickies at the top of the page by our host jazzbeau. There are some great pages on the Rhine and river cruising in general.

 

 

Have a great trip.

 

 

notamermaid

[AztecDuo]

TeamOR, We will see you, hopefully, aboard the Tialfi on September 15. Many thanks to all the fine cool cruisers posting and a special thanks to notamermaid for a wealth of information. Our first river cruise and first time in all the ports.

[Travelw]

We leave on the Avalon Imagery II on Sept 15th from Amsterdam. Hopefully the cruise goes without issue.

 

Dennis

[notamermaid]

Update on the bomb found at Neuwied. In preparation for the detonation 600 tonnes of wet sand had to be delivered to the site. That is 35 lorryloads! In addition to closure of the park, the railway line and street nearby, river traffic will be halted as of 6pm local time, i.e. starting in a few minutes from now. Closure is planned to last around two hours.

 

 

Apparently the bomb was found during routine checks that are done in times of low water.

 

 

notamermaid

[notamermaid]

Everything went smoothly last night, the bomb detonated safely under a large heap of sand. Traffic resumed quickly.

 

 

We had some rain yesterday of differing amounts in some parts of the valley and some is forecast for during the day today. This will not raise the water levels much. With virtually no rain forecast for the western part of Germany over the next three days (and possibly longer) levels will fall again. But for now they are ok and are all above the low water level mark right down to Düsseldorf.

 

 

Maxau 391cm, Kaub 98cm, Koblenz 97cm. Here is the current graph of Kaub: https://screenshots.firefox.com/G6c6Es03WXYnKJLb/www.pegelonline.wsv.de The level peaked during the night of 4/5 September at 119cm, it would have been so good to have stayed that "high"... After a short rise Maxau could fall again to 385cm and a little lower than that during next week.

 

 

While we are sort of doing ok on the Rhine, the Danube downstream from Regensburg is struggling again and the Elbe is still a sad shadow of her usual self. It looks as if the overall too dry conditions will stay with us for a while. A notion uttered by weather forecasters and the experts of the Federal Institute of Hoydrology (BAfG) in their 9th and 10th updates on the low water situation in Germany. Water tables and ground water resources are much diminished. As an example the BAfG gives the low water level in Lake Constance that is much below what is the average for this time of year. They also state that the period of April to August 2018 has been the warmest, sunniest and one of the periods with the least rain since records began in 1881.

 

 

notamermaid

[pully8]

https://www.bafg.de/EN/06_Info_Service/01_WaterLevels/waterlevels_node.html;jsessionid=908192E0AD25C86F57E5D8F18C4C6C16.live21303

just had a look at the latest water levels, still looks as if many areas remain at the lowest levels.

hopefully with autumn rains this will improve soon?

[notamermaid]

pully8,

 

 

yes the orange dots reveal that the East of Germany and the Weser (Hanover) and the tributaries are still on low water status. The Danube is also struggling again in parts or has remained on low. The green dots along the Rhine - as mentioned above - look promising for the time being but it all hangs in the rain that we will hopefully get next week. It is all a bit shaky and if we have no rain for five days the green dots on the Rhine could well turn orange again. This map is great for giving a fairly accurate overall picture of the situation. I use it all the time to give you the latest figures. However, as with all statistics there are shortcomings. The graph fails where the river is so deep that orange is no automatic indicator of problems like a single orange dot on the Moselle or the orange dot at Rees near the border to the Netherlands. Then one needs to look more closely at the actual figures.

 

 

As you said autumn rain could bring relief, but as of now, no significant amount of rain is forecast.

 

 

notamermaid

[Host Jazzbeau]

Everything went smoothly last night, the bomb detonated safely under a large heap of sand. Traffic resumed quickly.

 

notamermaid

 

With river levels being so low, isn't a huge heap of sand the last thing they need to add to the river bed? Is it going to be removed?

[notamermaid]

With river levels being so low, isn't a huge heap of sand the last thing they need to add to the river bed? Is it going to be removed?

 

Interesting question. The river is quite wide there in that basin (geographically speaking) so thankfully the spot is not in the navigation channel. The news report from Wednesday evening stated that the area would be searched for debris and then cleared (it is a public park area). I should think that they would remove the sand to be reused, but as I do not know if it came directly from the bomb squad's supplies I cannot say for sure if they would reuse it or if it is of no further use. If I can get hold of my local contact, a hydrology engineer, I will ask him.

 

notamermaid

[Fourmiler]

I know we’re talking about water levels, notamermaid, but just out of curiosity how big was the bomb found at Neuwied?

[cruising denise]

We're now returned from our travels, which had us ending with two days in Zermatt and two more in Geneva. What a wonderful trip! The Viking Hlin crew did a great job given all the difficulties, and we were very happy with our first river cruise.

 

Wannawander: just read your story of your German past. My Oma was German, lived in Cologne for a while, so this trip also brought memories for me, both of her, and just thinking about life connections to the region (although this was my first time in Germany). Thank you for sharing.

 

Notamermaid: Thank you so much for all the info, you live in a beautiful area of the world and we are so grateful we had this chance to visit. Glad you don't mind the snow if it comes! I must say I was very happy to see the snow on Gornergrat (just "up the hill" from Zermatt!!!) - I am not a hot-weather person. In all seriousness, I really hope the rain does come. Strangely in northeastern US we have had much more rain than normal despite the really warm temperatures.

 

Happy cruising all!

[notamermaid]

I know we’re talking about water levels, notamermaid, but just out of curiosity how big was the bomb found at Neuwied?

 

It was 500kg. I have found a German article with a good video:

 

http://www.nr-kurier.de/artikel/71076-neuwied-atmet-auf---bombe-erfolgreich-gesprengt

 

notamermaid

 

PS: river levels: Maxau 409cm, Kaub 100cm, Koblenz 93cm.

[notamermaid]

Dear Notamermaid, I remember the 2015 cruise on Gilles. It was a long 5 hour cruise, plenty of wine, beer and a huge piece of Lemmon cake. They also had to go really slow due to the low level. Now that cruise was in November of 2015, so low water can happen most anytime. This December we do the Seine river with Viking, next November the Douro in Portugal. However we spent a great three weeks in Germany this May for Spargel. All land and stayed two weeks in Karlstadt am Main, beautiful and relaxing. Hope you get rain and us too in Texas.

 

 

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Hello rcaruso,

 

Thank you for your post. I did not reply, an oversight, sorry. If you have followed the thread a bit you will of course have read that cruisers have indeed been on excursion boats again this year. Sad to think that it only happened three years ago to cruisers and this year it was as early as August. I am not sure if anyone has used Gilles this year, I just saw boats of other companies mentioned by name. Anyway, it is fortunate to have the option and I was glad to read that river cruise companies have been able to hire boats at short notice. With levels being higher now the situation has returned to almost normal for the river cruise ships, but it being only September nobody can say if ship swaps/excursion boat hire will not happen again this season.

 

Karlstadt am Main, I have never been there, it looks nice judging from its internet pages. It could perhaps be an alternative port on a Main river cruise: http://www.karlstadt.de/sites/gensite.asp?SID=cms080920181711183347284&Art=0625:3641

 

Have a great trip on the Seine.

 

notamermaid

[rcaruso]

Notamermaid,

 

Glad Rhine levels are better. Will report from Seine for all the France cruisers!

 

 

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[Norvig]

It was 500kg. I have found a German article with a good video:

 

http://www.nr-kurier.de/artikel/71076-neuwied-atmet-auf---bombe-erfolgreich-gesprengt

 

notamermaid

 

PS: river levels: Maxau 409cm, Kaub 100cm, Koblenz 93cm.

 

Excellent video. Thank you so much for all the information you provide both on history & river conditions. We continue to pray for rain for all concerned, locals & travelers.