Anybody know why the Danube is apparently so low around Budapest and yet just a few miles upstream in Vienna it’s right up to the banks?
Obviously the last 2 days of rain might have changed this, but it seems very confusing to me.
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@dch Well, you live upstream, closer to montains, and Danube mountainous tributaries (Enns, Inn, Trau). This is why you observe a quick refill, since mountainous rivers flow quickly and rush the water down.
Moreover, we are in a hydrological drought soil-wise in much of Europe, and a dry soil does not absorbs water quickly from a strong rain, and surplus rushes down stream. See this video by Rob Thompson, University of Reading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urQHsOmoKLg
@piero awesome! Thanks as somebody who did not grow up in Europe the plains geography is not something I’m familiar with
@dch Europe is really weird. Climate wise it has been an anomaly due to Gulf Stream and AMOC influence. If you look at this map with USA / Canada border superimposed over Europe on the same latitude, you can realise that many parts of Central Europe ie. Poland is in the zone where polar bears dwell in America.
@dch See 2025 Copernicus map of Europe (no summary of 2026 yet, map acquired from Michał Brennek), and pay attention to Pannonian Basin specifically.
A new data centre got built in between? 🤪
@justine I wonder if it’s just underflow (water naturally refilling or leaking into the ground storage systems) or if it’s actively being used for irrigation (or datacentres!) or other extractive human demand.
