Danube water levels 2023 and similar topics - plus tips and info

[rcaruso]

On the Gefjon, we docked this morning in Lindau outside of Passau Bussed in in the morning. We departed Passau at 2pm. Docked in Vilshofen to pick up optional tour folks. Our Program Director and Captain told us tonite we would stay in Vilshofen till 3am to decide if a little wave hits so we can sail to Regensburg. However an hour later during dinner the ship sailed to Heining and stopped (closer to Passau). So we do not know what will happen tomorrow. Will keep everyone posted.

[rcaruso]

Well woke up this morning on the Biking Gefjon now docked in Racklau. Too early for official word, but unofficially we will be switching tommorowvtocthe Viking Ve in Nürnberg.

[notamermaid]

This is Racklau, a 40 minute walk from the old town:

 

@rcaruso Thanks for reporting. Hope you have a good day in Passau and things go smoothly.

 

Pfelling at 279cm after a dip overnight.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[notamermaid]

A quick look at Budapest:

It appears that something is happening further upstream from Budapest soon. After a slow decline the forecast shows a rise. Substantial rain in Austria?

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

 And now for something quite different. Have a look at the marinetraffic.com screenshot of Passau I posted above. There is a place called Broken Glass Villa. We Germans have a bottle collection with deposit system, but surely this cannot have anything to do with it seeing that the bottles must be returned intact? The director's house of a glass recycling plant? No, neither. This is an actual town villa covered in broken glass and it is a work of art. It is difficult to find detailed info in English it seems but Atlas Obscura covers it: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/broken-glass-villa

 

This is now high on my list of places to see in Bavaria.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Pfelling gauge at 287cm and the trend is showing a clear line in the right direction.

 

notamermaid

 

[Daisi]

18 hours ago, notamermaid said:

 And now for something quite different. Have a look at the marinetraffic.com screenshot of Passau I posted above. There is a place called Broken Glass Villa. We Germans have a bottle collection with deposit system, but surely this cannot have anything to do with it seeing that the bottles must be returned intact? The director's house of a glass recycling plant? No, neither. This is an actual town villa covered in broken glass and it is a work of art. It is difficult to find detailed info in English it seems but Atlas Obscura covers it: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/broken-glass-villa

 

This is now high on my list of places to see in Bavaria.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

Interesting...we grew up near this place : https://www.maritimesmaven.com/new-blog-1/3/31/2021/the-pei-bottle-houses

 

We went there a lot, as all "visitors" wanted to see it.

[notamermaid]

Pfelling gauge at 289cm. Running slightly below the forecast which is firmly pointing towards 300cm for tomorrow afternoon. The margin of error sees the level below that figure but there is a chance that it could get a little above 300cm. The 27th should see even higher figures.

 

That is looking good.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[reeves35]

7 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Pfelling gauge at 289cm. Running slightly below the forecast which is firmly pointing towards 300cm for tomorrow afternoon. The margin of error sees the level below that figure but there is a chance that it could get a little above 300cm. The 27th should see even higher figures.

 

That is looking good.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

As I understand it, the Danube is free-flowing near Budapest so is this because there have been numerous thunderstorms in the Danube's catchments over the past few days?  

 

I've been watching the European rain radars in the past few weeks and have noticed more thunderstorms in the mountains which I assume is related to the heat being experienced throughout Europe right now.  Admittedly selfishly, I hope this continues for the next few weeks with our long-delayed Amsterdam to Budapest cruise now only 3 weeks away.

  

[rcaruso]

Well right after we made swap ships started sailing all the way through. Timing is everything.

[notamermaid]

5 hours ago, rcaruso said:

Well right after we made swap ships started sailing all the way through. Timing is everything.

Yes, you were really unfortunate. Hope it went well and you are enjoying the Canal. I know the Main river is well known to you so I guess you will be exploring old haunts and perhaps a new place.

 

Pfelling gauge doing even better than predicted - 323cm.

 

notamermaid

 

[CruiseIreland]

12 hours ago, reeves35 said:

As I understand it, the Danube is free-flowing near Budapest so is this because there have been numerous thunderstorms in the Danube's catchments over the past few days?  

 

I've been watching the European rain radars in the past few weeks and have noticed more thunderstorms in the mountains which I assume is related to the heat being experienced throughout Europe right now.  Admittedly selfishly, I hope this continues for the next few weeks with our long-delayed Amsterdam to Budapest cruise now only 3 weeks away.

  

Ha! We're completely covered by the first blue cloud on the left! Good to hear that the river level is heading in the right direction. 3 weeks til we embark at Regensburg. 👍

[rcaruso]

1 hour ago, notamermaid said:

Yes, you were really unfortunate. Hope it went well and you are enjoying the Canal. I know the Main river is well known to you so I guess you will be exploring old haunts and perhaps a new place.

 

Pfelling gauge doing even better than predicted - 323cm.

 

notamermaid

 

We are sailing now from Zeil to Würzburg. Had a huge thunderstorm with a little hail in Bamberg, but all good. Sitting on my balcony enjoying the river now. Thank you Notamermsid for all your reporting.

[Merlin_AZ]

Hi everyone.

I'm sailing on my first river cruise in 2 weeks.

AmaSonata: Budapest to Vilshofen.

It's nice to see the Pfelling guage going up recently, but I don't understand what the minimum readings must be to safely ride the river.

I'm sure there are other factors besides just the river depth, but in general, I'm trying to get some information.

I've researched other sites, but I couldn't get through the language barrier. 😞

How can I continue to monitor this and hopefully get some information that would help me?

I would appreciate any help.

Thanks in advance.

[CastleCritic]

There isnt a single answer as its not "the entire river" its basically the choke points, the most shallow place.  Some sections are free flowing, others more controlled by Dams.  The docking points in a given port may be in different depths.

 

The "bad" reading for the Danube, just north of Vilshofen that caused ship swaps recently is 290.

 

but on the Rhine, ,...I dont know what the actual low number is (and was last year)...but it was under 90 last week and cruise ships were going through no problem.

 

Ship size(some ships like viking have a deeper draft), fleet composition(can they do a swap, what would a ship getting stuck on one side or the other mean for future sailing), in the end the captain has the final word if he thinks its safe to do it.  Some will do it up to the point that they are scraping the bottom, others are more cautious.  Some will just go slower.

 

You shouldn't have any issues with that cruise though. AmaSonata is a fairly shallow draft ship and the river is at a good enough level that it shouldn't drop significantly before then.

 

Just monitor this board, there will be good indications if cruise lines have started implementing any contingencies, but know that the point that NotaMermaid keeps talking about is NOT on your route, its between Vilshofen and Regensburg towards Nuremberg.

Edited July 26, 2023 by CastleCritic

[notamermaid]

Just now, CastleCritic said:

Just monitor this board, there will be good indications if cruise lines have started implementing any contingencies, but know that the point that NotaMermaid keeps talking about is NOT on your route, its between Vilshofen and Regensburg towards Nuremberg.

Yes, Vilshofen to Budapest (or vice versa) is a good itinerary to avoid the worst problems. With the recent rain the area around Budapest should be fine for at least a few days and of course better than Pfelling should the level fall again.

 

Thank you for helping with explaining this to Merlin_AZ.

 

Just now, Merlin_AZ said:

I'm sailing on my first river cruise in 2 weeks.

AmaSonata: Budapest to Vilshofen.

Have a great cruise. Budapest is fabulous.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[MAtravelbug]

we're on the Aug 11 regensburg to budapest viking cruise, just hoping we don't get bussed around regensburg/passau.  Does Viking send emails out to cruisers who might be impacted by low water?  Just curious.

MAtravelbug

[notamermaid]

Pfelling gauge at 359cm. After a relatively fast rise it is still going up but more slowly so. Could the river reach a plateau soon? Or will the continued rain mean that the level will go up considerably still? It is too cool for July and really rainy over much of Germany.

 

notamermaid

 

[Izengolf]

6 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Pfelling gauge at 359cm. After a relatively fast rise it is still going up but more slowly so. Could the river reach a plateau soon? Or will the continued rain mean that the level will go up considerably still? It is too cool for July and really rainy over much of Germany.

 

notamermaid

 

Thanks to all on this thread, I've been reading it to learn about water levels and how problems are handled before my first river cruise September 20 Budapest to Nuremberg + Prague. 

 

I live in western Romania (but am Canadian) about 4 hours from Budapest and can confirm the the July weather has been cool and rainy compared to normal from there to here. In 2018 there was no snow then no almost no rain from April to November. In 2022 it wasn't quite so bad but the summer heat and extended drought were terrible until heavy rains mid-September. Fingers crossed for more rain but I do feel for those on cruises this past week hit with strong thunderstorms during their tours.

 

As an aside, I haven't read many reports on how Uniworld handles it other than itinerary changes that may or may not involve hotels. The SS Beatrice doesn't have a sister for swaps on the Danube. Has anyone experienced it?

[notamermaid]

Pfelling gauge at 376cm. While the river can surprise as in this area and the level has gone done from a peak during the night of over 400cm, I think we can relax about the level this weekend. The cloudy and rainy weather will be with us into the weekend.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[notamermaid]

Pfelling gauge at 370cm.

 

Some fun ship trivia to distract us from river levels on this Sunday. We all know that going against the current on a fast river requires some effort. In times past, without engines, this was done with sails and horses pulling the ships. But you could also just not bother and only go downstream with a ship - or raft. This is timber rafting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_rafting

You can transport people and cargo on such a raft but you may need a box for some cargo. Or you could make a "box" that is the boat. First a slightly fun/derogative name due its lightweight (if not flimsy) construction it has become the term for this type of historic boat used on the Upper Danube around Ulm, the "Ulmer Schachtel": https://english.ulm.de/0/the-ulmer-schachtel

 

notamermaid

 

 

[notamermaid]

A nice reaction to the rainy weather of the river at Budapest:

In Bavaria the cloudy/drizzle rainy weather is likely to continue during this week.

 

notamermaid

 

[deec]

does the Danube flow toward Amsterdam or toward Budapest how strong is the current?

[Haqdeluxe]

21 minutes ago, deec said:

does the Danube flow toward Amsterdam or toward Budapest how strong is the current?

Flows towards the Black Sea (southeast) and does have fairly strong currents. 

[notamermaid]

Yes, the current is relatively strong on the Danube. It varies. Officials give a range of 3 to 10 km/h at average volume of water.  It is different from beyond Gönyü where there are abrupt changes but the river slows down and eventually creates a delta closer to the Black Sea. It also depends on how big the volume of water is. In flooding the river has a stronger current.

 

notamermaid