Floods in Germany
It has been raining quite a bit over the last weekend. The German Weather Service is reporting on its homepage at some stations (Aschau-Stein, Kreuth-Glashütte) ~400L per square meters within 90hours (3.75 days). As a comparison, the annual precipitation sum for Cologne is ~800L per square metre.
This has led to some extreme water levels, for example in Passau:
The magic water level for the city of Passau is 12,55m, which has been exceeded for the first time since the year 1501AD (don’t ask me what this really means, since most likely there has been some change in the river’s regime over the years…)
The comparison pre-flood and currently looks quite impressive:
Generally, the East and the South is affected. For example, a major highway close to lake Chiemsee is closed for traffic. Some people have kept their sense of humour, surprisingly:
update Tuesday; June 04, 2013:
Prof. Harald Kunstmann gave an Interview during a TV special on the current flooding on German TV last night — this is the URL (starting around minute 31)
Here is a comparison of the gauged water height at the station Passau in the Danube. The white bars occur when there was no measurement due to the destruction of the gauge. Since this accident happened, the responsible agency is “taking individual measurements” according to their website. Also interesting, the actual peak water hight was higher and later than predicted 24 hours before.
