Danube water levels 2024 and similar topics - plus tips and info

[notamermaid]

As things are looking pleasant on the German Danube, let us have some fun with technical words. I won't torture you with Abladetiefe and Fahrwassertiefe as the authorities in Austria are kindly supplying the webpage in English, too: https://www.viadonau.org/en/economy/online-services/calculation-of-the-draught-loaded

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

For some fun with statistics let us have a look at the past 12 months at Pfelling. The graph:

 

Neither of the crucial figures are marked in the graph but you can more or less make them out visually. 290cm is the figure which says "may find it difficult to sail the ship through the shallows", 620cm (the line Meldestufe 2 is at 600cm) says "the authorities ban river traffic". You can see that from the end of October 2023 till now there have been no issues with low water but there has been an unusually high amount of days when the river has been too high for shipping. And to put a figure to the low water of last year: Pfelling gauge is now at 444cm, at the same hour on 16 October 2023 the level was 263cm. That was too low for lots of river cruise ships.

 

notamermaid

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:46 PM by notamermaid

[RDVIK2016]

On 10/14/2024 at 1:39 PM, notamermaid said:

As things are looking pleasant on the German Danube, let us have some fun with technical words. I won't torture you with Abladetiefe and Fahrwassertiefe as the authorities in Austria are kindly supplying the webpage in English, too: https://www.viadonau.org/en/economy/online-services/calculation-of-the-draught-loaded

 

notamermaid

 

 

notamermaid,

A dimension I don't ever see discussed is the minimum height of a ship above the water line. All the river cruise ships can lower their wheel houses, topside railings etc., and can perhaps take on some water as ballast to give the ship the lowest possible profile to fit under bridges. I found an article about Viking Prestige that gave a measurement of "Höhe u. Wasserlinie" (height above the waterline) of circa 6.10m . That would be too high to fit under the bridges at Passau and Bogen long before river traffic is stopped. On the other hand it does not say if that is the height at minimum draft and with all the upper deck things raised or the minimum with everything retracted and at maximum draft. The German term is "Fixpunkthöhe". The images attached come from the linked source that you provided.

 

So my question is:  Is there any place where the range of the height from lowest to highest is regularly listed? 

RDVIK

 

P.S. Having looked at your link I can't decide if my new favorite nautical term is the German "Absunk" or the equivalent English "squat" of a ship.