Storms and floods occurred Czech Republic and the Slovakia On Sunday and Monday, thousands of families were left without power and evacuations were necessary in several parts of the country. Especially on the Elbe and the smaller rivers in the north of the Czech Republic, close to the borders with Saxony and Poland According to meteorological services and firefighters, the flood situation remained tense on Monday. There were warnings of new unusual weather conditions Germany.
➤ Upper Austria: landslide destroys house + record storm in Lower Austria
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.
Evacuated locations
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.
➤ You can read more about Friday missions here: Storm caused hundreds of missions: in Lower Austria, Jäger was killed by a tree
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 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.
Flood warnings in Germany
Due to persistent heavy rain and saturated soils, 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.
➤ Saturday Review: Storm and snow: The risk of flooding is now increasing
The city of Windehausen (district Nordhausen) in northern Thuringia is particularly affected. The flood situation became so serious that on Christmas Day it was necessary to completely evacuate the district of Heringen, which has almost 500 inhabitants. “The situation is very threatening, I have never seen an image like this in Goldene Aue,” Heringen city mayor Matthias Marquardt (left) told the German Press Agency. The water reached a meter high in some places. The mayor described the situation as critical because there was no electricity, no access and no landline telephone.
Constant rain in Erzgebirge
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.