12/25/2023 4:14 pm (current 12/25/2023 4:14 pm)
Germany also expected storms and storms on Christmas Day ©APA/dpa
Storms and floods cut power to thousands of families in the Czech Republic and Slovakia on Sunday and Monday and made evacuations necessary in several parts of the country. According to meteorological services and firefighters, the flood situation remained tense on Monday, especially on the Elbe and smaller rivers in the north of the Czech Republic, close to the borders with Saxony and Poland. There were warnings of more capricious weather conditions in Germany.
Around 12,000 families in the Czech Republic were temporarily without electricity, including 3,700 on Monday. In Slovakia, the number of households without electricity rose from 7,000 on Sunday to 9,000 on Monday, the TASR news agency reported. In Slovakia, important power lines also pass through hard-to-reach forest and mountainous regions, where persistent snowstorms have hampered repair work. Fallen trees also blocked numerous roads and rail links in both countries.
In Mrakotin u Telce, in southern Bohemia, 20 houses had to be evacuated due to an imminent dam failure. In other Czech regions, remote homes outside city centers were also evacuated. On Saturday, Czech firefighters recorded around 2,000 missions. Fallen trees and flooded basements were usually the cause.
Heavy snowfall that later turned to rain, as well as the sharp rise in temperature on Sunday that melted the snow, also caused flooding in Slovakia. In the capital, Bratislava, streets and parking lots near the banks of the Danube and March, as well as underpasses in the city center, were flooded. The SHMU meteorological service and the fire department stated that there is currently no serious danger to the residential areas of the city's population.
Due to persistent heavy rain, authorities continued to warn of flooding in several parts of Germany on Christmas Day. The German Weather Service spoke on Monday about the “danger of flooding in many streams and rivers”, which was “in some cases significant”. The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) has issued storm warnings for Bremen and Hamburg.
According to the German Weather Service, there are continuous heavy rains in many low mountain ranges and strong thaws in the Ore Mountains. Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and Saxony are particularly affected. The weather situation can also lead to flooded streets and landslides.
The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) expected the storm surge mark of 1.5 meters above mean high tide (MHW) to be clearly exceeded by two meters in Bremen in the early afternoon. In Hamburg, authorities assumed a level of 1.5 to two meters at around 3 p.m. However, the BSH did not expect severe storms. On the North Sea coast of Lower Saxony, values in Wilhelmshaven on Monday remained below the storm mark.