How far ahead can river levels be forecast?
Not as far as most people expect, and the honest answer is worth having before you go looking. Every forward number published for these rivers comes from a national or state authority, and the furthest any of them reaches is six weeks — as weekly means, not as a level for a named day.
These are the products the waterway and weather authorities publish. Waterlogged makes no forecast of its own and republishes none of theirs: every horizon below is a link to the body that issues it, and every number on the rest of this site is a measurement already taken.
Hours to two days
The state services run the short forecasts, gauge by gauge, and they are the only numbers anybody publishes for tomorrow morning.
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Pfelling's own forecast page — opens HND Bayern — Pfelling, the German Danube
Bavaria's own page for Pfelling. Above the chart are three choices: no forecast, a twelve-hour forecast, and a two-day trend, each with the run time printed beside it. The scale is centimetres on Pfelling's own gauge datum, the same scale this site uses.
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Hofkirchen's own forecast page — opens HND Bayern — Hofkirchen, the German Danube
Bavaria's own page for Hofkirchen, with the same three choices as its neighbours: no forecast, a twelve-hour forecast, and a two-day trend. Neither reaches a date more than two days out, so for anything further ahead read BfG's six-week outlook instead.
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Würzburg's own forecast page — opens HND Bayern — Würzburg, the Main
Bavaria's own page for Würzburg on the Main, with the same choices as its Danube siblings: the measured level, and a two-day trend. The scale is centimetres over Würzburg's own gauge datum of 164,51 m NHN, which is the same datum this site's readings are on — the two pages printed 135 cm for the same quarter-hour when this link was checked. Nothing further ahead than two days is published for this gauge by anybody: BfG's six-week outlook does not reach the Main.
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Maxau's own forecast page — opens the Baden-Württemberg flood forecast centre — Maxau, the upper Rhine
Baden-Württemberg's flood forecast centre publishes the forecast for Maxau, not BfG. Open the Vorhersage tab: a forecast line runs about two days ahead in centimetres, and after that the chart switches to a wider trend estimate with a shaded band and a no-rain scenario, out to roughly two weeks. Read the band, not the middle of it.
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Trier's own forecast page — opens the Rhineland-Palatinate flood centre — Trier, the Moselle
The only authority that forecasts this gauge, and its page says the limit out loud: because the weirs hold this water, a Trier forecast is only possible above 260 cm, and everything below that is drawn as a flat line. So on a low-water day there is no forecast here to read — which is itself the answer for water the weirs keep at a working level.
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Cochem's own forecast page — opens the Rhineland-Palatinate flood centre — Cochem, the Moselle
The only authority that forecasts this gauge, and its page says the limit out loud: because the weirs hold this water, a Cochem forecast is only possible above 241 cm, and everything below that is drawn as a flat line. The risk this page is built for is high water, not low.
Three to six days
Three national services reach the end of the week: Saxony on the Elbe, Hungary at Budapest, and the Bulgarian Danube authority on the border run.
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Dresden's own forecast page — opens Saxony's state flood centre — Dresden, the Elbe
Saxony's own Dresden page. Below the measured table sits a forecast table headed with the hour it was made, giving a level in centimetres every three hours for about three days. The chart beside it shades the forecast range and the estimate beyond it.
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Schöna's own forecast page — opens Saxony's state flood centre — Schöna, the Elbe
Saxony's own page for the border gauge. Below the measured table sits a forecast table headed with the hour it was made, giving a level in centimetres every three hours for about three days. BfG's six-week outlook does not reach this gauge.
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Official Budapest water-level forecast — opens hydroinfo.hu (English) — Budapest, the Hungarian Danube
Hungary's own forecast table for the Danube at Budapest, in English. It gives a level in centimetres every six hours, about six days ahead, with the service's own plus-or-minus figure widening the further out you read. The table names the hour it was issued.
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ИАППД — official Bulgarian Danube forecast, six days (Bulgarian) — the Bulgarian lower Danube
The authority's own forward table for Oryahovo, Nikopol, Svishtov, Ruse and Silistra, giving a maximum, a forecast and a minimum for each of about six days. It is the only forward product published for this stretch: BfG forecasts German federal waterways and reaches nothing here, and EuRIS publishes no prediction series for these stations.
Fourteen days
One product, one river. Germany's federal hydrology institute publishes a fourteen-day water level for the Rhine, one value a day, and for nothing else.
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Official German federal 14-day water-level forecast — opens BfG — the Rhine
The German federal hydrology institute's own daily water-level forecast, fourteen days ahead, with BfG's own spread and caveats. It covers seven Rhine gauges — Oestrich, Kaub, Koblenz, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Duisburg-Ruhrort and Emmerich — and no other river.
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Kaub's own forecast page — opens ELWIS — Kaub, the Middle Rhine gorge
The gauge's own page: measured levels beside the German federal forecast for Kaub, in centimetres on the same gauge datum this site uses. It also links BfG's 14-day sheet and the six-week outlook for Kaub.
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Cologne's own forecast page — opens ELWIS (listed under Köln) — Cologne, the lower Rhine
The gauge's own page: measured levels beside the German federal forecast for Cologne, in centimetres on the same gauge datum this site uses. The German spelling is Köln, so look under K, not C.
Six weeks, as weekly means
The longest published horizon on any of these rivers, and the one this site reads every morning. It is a weekly mean rather than a level for a named day, which is a different thing from a forecast and is worth understanding before you read one: it says roughly where the week sits, not what Tuesday will be.
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Official German federal six-week outlook (weekly means) — opens BfG — the Rhine, the Main and the German Danube
BfG publishes this as a trend statement in weekly means, six weeks ahead, not as day-by-day cruise guidance. It reaches Maxau, Kaub and Cologne on the Rhine, Pfelling and Hofkirchen on the Danube, and Dresden on the Elbe. Open the official product to read BfG's own figures and caveats.
Past six weeks there is nothing, and that is not a gap in this site
Past about six weeks nobody publishes a water level for a named day, and a site that gave you one would be inventing it. What exists at that distance is the record — what the water has done in that month across the years on file — and what your cruise line has committed to in writing if the river does not cooperate.
- What the water has done month by month, at every gauge we hold a record for.
- What each cruise line publishes about low water, ship swaps and coach transfers.
- Sourced reports of named disruption, where a sailing was actually affected.
Two things worth knowing about the numbers themselves
A weekly mean is not a level for a day
The six-week outlook is the longest thing published on these rivers and it is the one most easily misread. It gives a figure for a week, not for a Tuesday: a week whose mean sits comfortably above a low-water reference can still contain a day that does not. Read it as the shape of the month rather than as the answer for your sailing date.
A forecast for a lock-held river is a different question
On the Main, the Moselle, the Main–Danube Canal and the Austrian Danube the depth is held by barrages, so a low reading closes nothing and the state services only forecast those gauges once the level is rising. What binds a cruise on that water is high water and lock operations, and the forward numbers published for it are about exactly that.
Linking is not endorsement. The publisher controls its own page, its own values and its own terms.