2013-06-09
Hannover on the Bayou
Central Europe is currently experiencing severe flooding. Here in Hannover our little river crested on May 30th, transforming the riverscape into something reminiscent of Louisiana (photo from May 27th):
Already the river has retreated into its normal banks. Just a few days later, the weather improved and attracted sun-deprived Germans to the still-muddy banks at Strandleben (photo from June 5th):
There's a cool online Pegelstand where you can graph the streamgauge data:
Surprisingly, the stream gauge shows that this year's high-water was only ~25 cm above the mean high water (MHW), although my colleagues all swear that they've never seen it this high.
Unlike other German and central-European cities, Hannover was never in any danger from the high water (although some of the surrounding villages deployed sandbags in defense). One popular theory (which I doubt) is that the name "Hannover" comes from "das Hohe Ufer" (the high riverbank).
Already the river has retreated into its normal banks. Just a few days later, the weather improved and attracted sun-deprived Germans to the still-muddy banks at Strandleben (photo from June 5th):
There's a cool online Pegelstand where you can graph the streamgauge data:
Surprisingly, the stream gauge shows that this year's high-water was only ~25 cm above the mean high water (MHW), although my colleagues all swear that they've never seen it this high.
Unlike other German and central-European cities, Hannover was never in any danger from the high water (although some of the surrounding villages deployed sandbags in defense). One popular theory (which I doubt) is that the name "Hannover" comes from "das Hohe Ufer" (the high riverbank).