Catastrophic rainfalls hit large parts of Lower Austria, Czech Republic, Southern Poland last weekend. Most historic records have been broken. In Austria daily rainfalls exceeded previous records by 50%. Luckily the snow line decreased rapidly down to the valleys in the Eastern Alps, resulting in heavy snowfalls instead of rain in late summer. To the East in Lower Austria and CZ/PL it was only rain; half of annular amounts poured down within 72 hours.
It is the result of a well-known but rare weather phaenomenon (meteorologists call it "Vb" depression in textbooks) in which a depression forms over the heated, northern Mediterranean, soaks up moisture and moves quickly northeast across Lower Austria, Czech Republic and Poland, where it was blocked this time by multiple highs for days.
The same weather phenomenon caused the previous catastrophic floods in the river systems of the Oder (DE/PL) in 1997 and Elbe (DE/CZ) in 2002. In both the Czech Republic and Poland, the poorest, rural areas near the mountain ranges were hit the hardest, while the larger cities in the lowlands fared better this time due to investments in flood protection; prevention, warning...
Unfortunately, a few car drivers and a firefighter died, some people missing; but far from 1997/2002 when more than 70 resp. 40 people died.
Catastrophic rainfalls hit large parts of Lower Austria, Czech Republic, Southern Poland last weekend. Most historic records have been broken. In Austria daily rainfalls exceeded previous records by 50%. Luckily the snow line decreased rapidly down to the valleys in the Eastern Alps, resulting in heavy snowfalls instead of rain in late summer. To the East in Lower Austria and CZ/PL it was only rain; half of annular amounts poured down within 72 hours.
It is the result of a well-known but rare weather phaenomenon (meteorologists call it "Vb" depression in textbooks) in which a depression forms over the heated, northern Mediterranean, soaks up moisture and moves quickly northeast across Lower Austria, Czech Republic and Poland, where it was blocked this time by multiple highs for days.
The same weather phenomenon caused the previous catastrophic floods in the river systems of the Oder (DE/PL) in 1997 and Elbe (DE/CZ) in 2002. In both the Czech Republic and Poland, the poorest, rural areas near the mountain ranges were hit the hardest, while the larger cities in the lowlands fared better this time due to investments in flood protection; prevention, warning...
Unfortunately, a few car drivers and a firefighter died, some people missing; but far from 1997/2002 when more than 70 resp. 40 people died.
Catastrophic rainfalls hit large parts of Lower Austria, Czech Republic, Southern Poland last weekend. Most historic records have been broken. In Austria daily rainfalls exceeded previous records by 50%. Luckily the snow line decreased rapidly down to the valleys in the Eastern Alps, resulting in heavy snowfalls instead of rain in late summer. To the East in Lower Austria and CZ/PL it was only rain; half of annular amounts poured down within 72 hours.
It is the result of a well-known but rare weather phaenomenon (meteorologists call it "Vb" depression in textbooks) in which a depression forms over the heated, northern Mediterranean, soaks up moisture and moves quickly northeast across Lower Austria, Czech Republic and Poland, where it was blocked this time by multiple highs for days.
The same weather phenomenon caused the previous catastrophic floods in the river systems of the Oder (DE/PL) in 1997 and Elbe (DE/CZ) in 2002. In both the Czech Republic and Poland, the poorest, rural areas near the mountain ranges were hit the hardest, while the larger cities in the lowlands fared better this time due to investments in flood protection; prevention, warning...
Unfortunately, a few car drivers and a firefighter died, some people missing; but far from 1997/2002 when more than 70 resp. 40 people died.
I second Mikey's comment! WOW!! How close was/is this catastrophic to where you live?
The catastrophe is widespread among different river systems in three countries Austria, Czech Republic and Poland. The Neisse river (DE: Lausitzer Neiße, PL: Nysa Łużycka) is just 20 km from here (border DE/PL) which will see very high flood levels for the coming 2..3 days; but supposedly no damages this time.
Catastrophic floods occured 300 km southeast in Czech Republic and Poland at the foots of the DE: Altvatergebirge, resp. CZ: Hrubý Jeseník (Rough Jesenik Mountains) as well as CZ:Nízký Jeseník (Lower Jes. mntns.) where they suffered almost 500mm rainfall (20 inches) within 2..3 days; Catastrophic damage in Czech towns Jeseník, Krnov, Oppava, ... Precipitation from this region immediately flows across border to Poland into DE: Glatzer Neiße; PL: Nysa Kłodzka(diffrent river, also called "Neiße") where towns DE:Neiße/PL:Nysa, and DE:Glatz/PL:Kłodzk were completely flooded. Or water flows further east direcly into major river DE:Oder resp. PL:Odra which runs through southern Poland, then (50km from here) further along the DE/PL border into the Baltic Sea. So we will get high floodwaters at Neiße and Oder rivers in states Saxony, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg along the whole DE/PL border in coming days. The Oder valley in the lowlands is wide; seems like no damage expected in my state of Brandenburg, as heavy rain only fell in southernmost parts of Poland, luckily for us not further north. (It was different in 1997 when catastrophic damage occured all along Oder river in DE & PL).
The rainfall from most regions of Czech Republic flows into DE: Elbe resp. CZ: Labe river, crosses through a narrow rocky valley into Saxony (100 km to the south); very high floodwaters are expected there for the next 2..3 days. Predicted levels indicate flooded roads and riverside terraces; but no damage. Further into Germany the Elbe river widens in the lowlands; finally flowing in the North Sea behind Hamburg.
So, most of the preticipation poured down in Austria, (500 kilometers to the south) in the states of Salzburg and Upper Austria mostly as snowfall; and as widespread catastrophic rain all over the state of Lower Austria, including city of Vienna. In the entire state, countless towns and villages at all tributaries of the major Danube river are affected by heavy flood damage.... EXCEPT Vienna (the old capital of the Austrian-Hungary Empire), which disposes an enormous flood regulation system (planned for the worst known floods in medieval times). There were previously unseen huge water flows in the parallel flood channels, but no damage. So, heavy flood waters will roll down the Danube river for the next week through Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania into the Black Sea. Don't know if there will be further damage downstream.
Btw.: If you're wondering about all the different DE/CZ/PL names... the borders and nationality of these former German regions (now: Poland), resp. former German inhabitated regions of Czechoslovakia (now Czech) changed after WW2. Old German names are still common because many of CZ or PL names are difficult to pronounce for us; English variants not easy to derive. Even Google Maps only displays German names there; not trivial to get the real PL or CZ names.
I second Mikey's comment! WOW!! How close was/is this catastrophic to where you live?
The catastrophe is widespread among different river systems in three countries Austria, Czech Republic and Poland. The Neisse river (DE: Lausitzer Neiße, PL: Nysa Łużycka) is just 20 km from here (border DE/PL) which will see very high flood levels for the coming 2..3 days; but supposedly no damages this time.
So... If I read this correctly, this catastrophic rain storm with the consequential flooding is wide spread, but the flooding of the Neisse River is only 20 km from where you live? That's pretty close considering how extensive this storm is, or was.
I just hope you and your family are OK and not in any danger of getting flooded out. I imagine that it has been raining quite a bit by you, just not enough to cause flooding in your area.
Scrooge McDuck wrote:
Btw.: If you're wondering about all the different DE/CZ/PL names... the borders and nationality of these former German regions (now: Poland), resp. former German inhabitated regions of Czechoslovakia (now Czech) changed after WW2. Old German names are still common because many of CZ or PL names are difficult to pronounce for us; English variants not easy to derive. Even Google Maps only displays German names there; not trivial to get the real PL or CZ names.
I did sort of realize that, but thanks for explaining it more thoroughly.
So... If I read this correctly, this catastrophic rain storm with the consequential flooding is wide spread, but the flooding of the Neisse River is only 20 km from where you live? That's pretty close considering how extensive this storm is, or was.
I just hope you and your family are OK and not in any danger of getting flooded out. I imagine that it has been raining quite a bit by you, just not enough to cause flooding in your area.
Uuuh, yes. There were no problems, no dangers here. Our local smaller river even has two or three dams upstream to protect us from flooding, while the larger Neiße, Oder, Elbe, not to think of Danube rivers have none.
We had significant rain here, but the storm/depression moved mainly across AT/CZ/PL this time. What rains down in southern PL or northeastern CZ reaches us days later via Oder and also Neiße river: a 250 km long southern tributary of Oder. There were high, but manageable flood levels at all river sections along our border to PL; no flooded houses. We were lucky this time because heavy rain occured only in parts of southern PL. Only people in CZ, PL, AT suffered this time.
In 1997 catastrophe hit our state Brandenburg at Oder river; in 2002 at Elbe river; I was a conscript in 1997 and with 30,000 others spent a week carrying/placing sandbags, repairing heavily damaged dykes (earth softens from days of water pressure; water seeps through, washes out sand; parts sink away..., dangerous if not repaired ASAP); 24/7; a days long 'battle', nationwide reported in TV news; six large military helicopters (CH-53; infernal noise) above our heads, transporting 5 tons of sandbags in large nets... Nevertheless, in an ~1000 sq kilometers lowland (50 km east of Berlin) a couple of villages (up to 10m below river's high water levels) could not be saved; houses flooded up to the 2nd floor (photos). That's the damage potential of these rare Mediterranean depressions here in CZ/PL/ Eastern DE lowlands if dykes aren't properly maintained. Until 1997 authorities spend few money (old historic dykes; lacking major refitting at least since a century). Now the dykes are rebuilt and almost perfect here.
This time: (coloured map) of precipitation for Czech Rep. & Lower Austria (south of CZ)
ICON-EU forecast model: 2024-09-13 00z, accumulated for following four days:
One can also display the measured precipitation reports; but only for 1/6/12/24 hour intervalls; not accumulated over 3...4 days. Here is 2024-09-15_0600z ('z' is UTC):
At the major European rivers Elbe, Danube, Oder (Neiße flows into Oder 50km from here) you have up to 3 days to prepare for flood waves when such rare large rain storms[*] occur. There's international cooperation; extensive flood level monitoring, dam regulation; flood level forecast models... So flood barriers have been set up in time within cities at Oder and in Saxony at Elbe river (mobile meter-high heavy steel barriers), most dikes out of towns/cities were rebuilt and raised after the two catastrophic disasters 1997 and 2002. Seems this worked fairly good in CZ/AT/PL/DE this time at major rivers. For centuries, all rivers have been straightened in our lowlands; confined behind dykes; riparian zones drained for more agricultural lands. Now and then, Mother Nature brutally strikes back for this human hubris.
But the dangerous, previously unknown, extreme rain only occured in a region near the mountains (in CZ/PL) (most of the photos from my previous post), where the depression was pushed against. Same happend in almost the whole state of Lower Austria with the Alps mountain range blocking the depression. Unbelievable 24 hour records for 2..3 days. There the extreme rain created sudden floods in all the smaller creeks and rivers far exceeding known levels; you can hardly prepare for; wildwaters flooded towns and even destroyed houses in CZ/PL by force. Tens of thousands of Czechs and Poles were badly affected. As well as Austrians on all tributaries of the Danube (no wildwaters in AT but flooded houses).
[*] storm... it's more of an rare extensive 'tropic' depression, which only develops over extremely hot (27...30°C; 80..86F) northern Mediterranean Sea; which then moves northeast where it eventually gets blocked, releasing all of its accumulated humidity in AT/CZ or more like CZ/PL, sometimes also Eastern parts of Saxony & Bavaria (DE).
So... If I read this correctly, this catastrophic rain storm with the consequential flooding is wide spread, but the flooding of the Neisse River is only 20 km from where you live? That's pretty close considering how extensive this storm is, or was.
I just hope you and your family are OK and not in any danger of getting flooded out. I imagine that it has been raining quite a bit by you, just not enough to cause flooding in your area.
Uuuh, yes. There were no problems, no dangers here. Our local smaller river even has two or three dams upstream to protect us from flooding, while the larger Neiße, Oder, Elbe, not to think of Danube rivers have none.
We had significant rain here, but the storm/depression moved mainly across AT/CZ/PL this time. What rains down in southern PL or northeastern CZ reaches us days later via Oder and also Neiße river: a 250 km long southern tributary of Oder. There were high, but manageable flood levels at all river sections along our border to PL; no flooded houses. We were lucky this time because heavy rain occured only in parts of southern PL. Only people in CZ, PL, AT suffered this time.
.....snip.....
Good! I'm glad you weren't affected by the flooding, just some torrential rains...
Where I live in Illinois (USA), the terrain is fairly flat, just some rolling hills. But the worst I had ever experienced was 1996 when a rain storm stagnated and continued on and on and left us with nearly 17 in (43+ CM) of rain in 24 hrs. Quote: "Rainfall amounts were greatest in Kane and Du Page Counties; 16.91 inches of rain were officially recorded at the National Weather Service rain gage in Aurora." From: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs//1997/0097/report.pdf
Where I lived at the time was between Naperville in DuPage county and Aurora in Kane county. The roads were flooded, and I had water that came to within 50 ft of my house, which was built on a slab - i.e. no basement. I tell you this so that you could locate where this was by some of the photos and maps in the files I'm sending.
Triple digits and the middle
)
Triple digits and the middle digit isn't zero.
low 80's today and after the
)
low 80's today and after the low 80's again Friday this weekend will top out in the LOW 70's!!!
Catastrophic rainfalls hit
)
Catastrophic rainfalls hit large parts of Lower Austria, Czech Republic, Southern Poland last weekend. Most historic records have been broken. In Austria daily rainfalls exceeded previous records by 50%. Luckily the snow line decreased rapidly down to the valleys in the Eastern Alps, resulting in heavy snowfalls instead of rain in late summer. To the East in Lower Austria and CZ/PL it was only rain; half of annular amounts poured down within 72 hours.
It is the result of a well-known but rare weather phaenomenon (meteorologists call it "Vb" depression in textbooks) in which a depression forms over the heated, northern Mediterranean, soaks up moisture and moves quickly northeast across Lower Austria, Czech Republic and Poland, where it was blocked this time by multiple highs for days.
The same weather phenomenon caused the previous catastrophic floods in the river systems of the Oder (DE/PL) in 1997 and Elbe (DE/CZ) in 2002. In both the Czech Republic and Poland, the poorest, rural areas near the mountain ranges were hit the hardest, while the larger cities in the lowlands fared better this time due to investments in flood protection; prevention, warning...
Scrooge McDuck
)
WOW!!!
Scrooge McDuck
)
I second Mikey's comment! WOW!! How close was/is this catastrophic to where you live?
Proud member of the Old Farts Association
GWGeorge007 schrieb:I
)
The catastrophe is widespread among different river systems in three countries Austria, Czech Republic and Poland. The Neisse river (DE: Lausitzer Neiße, PL: Nysa Łużycka) is just 20 km from here (border DE/PL) which will see very high flood levels for the coming 2..3 days; but supposedly no damages this time.
Catastrophic floods occured 300 km southeast in Czech Republic and Poland at the foots of the DE: Altvatergebirge, resp. CZ: Hrubý Jeseník (Rough Jesenik Mountains) as well as CZ:Nízký Jeseník (Lower Jes. mntns.) where they suffered almost 500mm rainfall (20 inches) within 2..3 days; Catastrophic damage in Czech towns Jeseník, Krnov, Oppava, ... Precipitation from this region immediately flows across border to Poland into DE: Glatzer Neiße; PL: Nysa Kłodzka (diffrent river, also called "Neiße") where towns DE:Neiße/PL:Nysa, and DE:Glatz/PL:Kłodzk were completely flooded. Or water flows further east direcly into major river DE:Oder resp. PL:Odra which runs through southern Poland, then (50km from here) further along the DE/PL border into the Baltic Sea. So we will get high floodwaters at Neiße and Oder rivers in states Saxony, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg along the whole DE/PL border in coming days. The Oder valley in the lowlands is wide; seems like no damage expected in my state of Brandenburg, as heavy rain only fell in southernmost parts of Poland, luckily for us not further north. (It was different in 1997 when catastrophic damage occured all along Oder river in DE & PL).
The rainfall from most regions of Czech Republic flows into DE: Elbe resp. CZ: Labe river, crosses through a narrow rocky valley into Saxony (100 km to the south); very high floodwaters are expected there for the next 2..3 days. Predicted levels indicate flooded roads and riverside terraces; but no damage. Further into Germany the Elbe river widens in the lowlands; finally flowing in the North Sea behind Hamburg.
So, most of the preticipation poured down in Austria, (500 kilometers to the south) in the states of Salzburg and Upper Austria mostly as snowfall; and as widespread catastrophic rain all over the state of Lower Austria, including city of Vienna. In the entire state, countless towns and villages at all tributaries of the major Danube river are affected by heavy flood damage.... EXCEPT Vienna (the old capital of the Austrian-Hungary Empire), which disposes an enormous flood regulation system (planned for the worst known floods in medieval times). There were previously unseen huge water flows in the parallel flood channels, but no damage. So, heavy flood waters will roll down the Danube river for the next week through Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania into the Black Sea. Don't know if there will be further damage downstream.
Btw.: If you're wondering about all the different DE/CZ/PL names... the borders and nationality of these former German regions (now: Poland), resp. former German inhabitated regions of Czechoslovakia (now Czech) changed after WW2. Old German names are still common because many of CZ or PL names are difficult to pronounce for us; English variants not easy to derive. Even Google Maps only displays German names there; not trivial to get the real PL or CZ names.
Scrooge McDuck
)
So... If I read this correctly, this catastrophic rain storm with the consequential flooding is wide spread, but the flooding of the Neisse River is only 20 km from where you live? That's pretty close considering how extensive this storm is, or was.
I just hope you and your family are OK and not in any danger of getting flooded out. I imagine that it has been raining quite a bit by you, just not enough to cause flooding in your area.
I did sort of realize that, but thanks for explaining it more thoroughly.
Proud member of the Old Farts Association
GWGeorge007 schrieb:So...
)
Uuuh, yes. There were no problems, no dangers here. Our local smaller river even has two or three dams upstream to protect us from flooding, while the larger Neiße, Oder, Elbe, not to think of Danube rivers have none.
We had significant rain here, but the storm/depression moved mainly across AT/CZ/PL this time. What rains down in southern PL or northeastern CZ reaches us days later via Oder and also Neiße river: a 250 km long southern tributary of Oder. There were high, but manageable flood levels at all river sections along our border to PL; no flooded houses. We were lucky this time because heavy rain occured only in parts of southern PL. Only people in CZ, PL, AT suffered this time.
In 1997 catastrophe hit our state Brandenburg at Oder river; in 2002 at Elbe river; I was a conscript in 1997 and with 30,000 others spent a week carrying/placing sandbags, repairing heavily damaged dykes (earth softens from days of water pressure; water seeps through, washes out sand; parts sink away..., dangerous if not repaired ASAP); 24/7; a days long 'battle', nationwide reported in TV news; six large military helicopters (CH-53; infernal noise) above our heads, transporting 5 tons of sandbags in large nets... Nevertheless, in an ~1000 sq kilometers lowland (50 km east of Berlin) a couple of villages (up to 10m below river's high water levels) could not be saved; houses flooded up to the 2nd floor (photos). That's the damage potential of these rare Mediterranean depressions here in CZ/PL/ Eastern DE lowlands if dykes aren't properly maintained. Until 1997 authorities spend few money (old historic dykes; lacking major refitting at least since a century). Now the dykes are rebuilt and almost perfect here.
This time: (coloured map) of precipitation for Czech Rep. & Lower Austria (south of CZ)
ICON-EU forecast model: 2024-09-13 00z, accumulated for following four days:
https://weather.us/model-charts/deu-hd/2024091300/czech-republic/acc-total-precipitation/20240918-0000z.html
One can also display the measured precipitation reports; but only for 1/6/12/24 hour intervalls; not accumulated over 3...4 days. Here is 2024-09-15_0600z ('z' is UTC):
https://weather.us/observations/czech-republic/precipitation-total-24h-in100/20240915-0600z.html
At the major European rivers Elbe, Danube, Oder (Neiße flows into Oder 50km from here) you have up to 3 days to prepare for flood waves when such rare large rain storms[*] occur. There's international cooperation; extensive flood level monitoring, dam regulation; flood level forecast models... So flood barriers have been set up in time within cities at Oder and in Saxony at Elbe river (mobile meter-high heavy steel barriers), most dikes out of towns/cities were rebuilt and raised after the two catastrophic disasters 1997 and 2002. Seems this worked fairly good in CZ/AT/PL/DE this time at major rivers. For centuries, all rivers have been straightened in our lowlands; confined behind dykes; riparian zones drained for more agricultural lands. Now and then, Mother Nature brutally strikes back for this human hubris.
But the dangerous, previously unknown, extreme rain only occured in a region near the mountains (in CZ/PL) (most of the photos from my previous post), where the depression was pushed against. Same happend in almost the whole state of Lower Austria with the Alps mountain range blocking the depression. Unbelievable 24 hour records for 2..3 days. There the extreme rain created sudden floods in all the smaller creeks and rivers far exceeding known levels; you can hardly prepare for; wildwaters flooded towns and even destroyed houses in CZ/PL by force. Tens of thousands of Czechs and Poles were badly affected. As well as Austrians on all tributaries of the Danube (no wildwaters in AT but flooded houses).
[*] storm... it's more of an rare extensive 'tropic' depression, which only develops over extremely hot (27...30°C; 80..86F) northern Mediterranean Sea; which then moves northeast where it eventually gets blocked, releasing all of its accumulated humidity in AT/CZ or more like CZ/PL, sometimes also Eastern parts of Saxony & Bavaria (DE).
Scrooge McDuck
)
Good! I'm glad you weren't affected by the flooding, just some torrential rains...
Where I live in Illinois (USA), the terrain is fairly flat, just some rolling hills. But the worst I had ever experienced was 1996 when a rain storm stagnated and continued on and on and left us with nearly 17 in (43+ CM) of rain in 24 hrs. Quote: "Rainfall amounts were greatest in Kane and Du Page Counties; 16.91 inches of rain were officially recorded at the National Weather Service rain gage in Aurora." From: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs//1997/0097/report.pdf
Where I lived at the time was between Naperville in DuPage county and Aurora in Kane county. The roads were flooded, and I had water that came to within 50 ft of my house, which was built on a slab - i.e. no basement. I tell you this so that you could locate where this was by some of the photos and maps in the files I'm sending.
Check out these articles:
https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/0425/report.pdf
And this abstract summary of an article at:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/38/3/1520-0450_1999_038_0273_rfproj_2.0.co_2.xml?tab_body=abstract-display
Few photos are available, but you get the idea.
Proud member of the Old Farts Association
"lts raining. It's pouring.
)
"lts raining. It's pouring. The old man is snoring....".
Around here in NE Kansas, USA.
A Proud member of the O.F.A. (Old Farts Association). Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)