Hours of rainfall cause rivers to swell and overflow in parts of Germany – roads are blocked occasionally and sandbags are draped as a precaution.
Trier / Koblenz / Hamburg / Offenbach / Stuttgart – Continuous rain and a storm low caused a slight flood in parts of Germany on Wednesday. In Rhineland-Palatinate, shipping was restricted on the Moselle and the Rhine, as the flood reporting center announced.
On the Middle Rhine, barges in the Koblenz and Andernach area had to slow down and stay in the middle of the fairway. In Koblenz, where the Moselle flows into the Rhine, the fire brigade expected individual roads to be flooded, according to information on Wednesday. In Trier the water level fell again after the rain subsided.
Blocked roads
In the north and east of Bavaria, the rainy weather caused individual rivers to overflow their banks – in some cases the second-highest flood reporting level 3 was already in effect, as the flood intelligence service announced. According to the police, a brook and in some places the river Kinzig crossed in southern Hesse. Several streets had to be closed.
In northern Germany, a storm low on Wednesday night caused a lot of wind and increased water levels, as a spokeswoman for the Federal Office for Shipping and Hydrography announced (BSH). In Hamburg, for example, according to a photographer from the German Press Agency, some water spilled over onto the fish market – but there were no major floods.
In the coming days, the German Weather Service (DWD) expects a rather stable weather situation. In the northeast half of Thursday, apart from a few cloud fields, it will be sunny and dry for a long time. In the southwest half it is initially cloudy, but later, according to the meteorologists, it will be friendly there for longer. In the south and in the eastern low mountain ranges, light snow or snow showers are still possible, but these will subside later. The maximum values are between zero and six degrees. It is warmest on the North Sea and the Rhine.
On Friday, the DWD expects light sleet or wet snow from Schleswig-Holstein to the Eifel – from 200 to 300 meters even a few centimeters of fresh snow. The lows in the northwest and west are likely to be between four and minus one degree. In the rest of the country there is light to moderate frost between minus one and minus eight degrees, in the Alps it is also colder locally. While it will remain sunny and dry longer in the southeast on Friday, heavy rainfall is expected from the northwest and west to the southeast. In a strip from the southwest to the northeast, light snowfall is occasionally possible, and sleet is also possible in lower areas. There is a risk of slipperiness, especially in the mountains. dpa
