Viking River Cruises has not published which ship sails this departure.
Every water level below is measured against a line we work out for the ship class named above, using
its design How deep a ship sits in the water. That depth sets how much water it needs underneath. of 1.60 m.
That is our own assumption, not a figure from the cruise line. If Viking River Cruises names a ship
that sits deeper in the water, its line would be higher than the one drawn here.
Latest readings: Sunday 6 September 2026. Water levels change daily. Check again closer to your departure.
The Daily River Watch
Sunday 6 September 2026
River levels this morning — not the levels expected on your sailing dates
Rain check: about 30 mm of rain is forecast above Budapest over fourteen days. The forecast reaches 19 September. It does not change any status on this page.
3ports far below the line
0ports below the line
0ports above the line
0ports on lock-controlled reaches
0ports with no line to compare
4ports on stretches we watch no gauge on
1port with no river transit recorded
0ports where the ship is not sailing
What the statuses mean — each one is measured against the level we estimate a ship of this class needs
▼ Far below the lineThe measured level is under half of Waterlogged's reference line for a ship of this class.
▼ Below the lineThe measured level is below Waterlogged's reference line for a ship of this class. It is not yet under half that level.
✓ Above the lineThe measured level is at or above Waterlogged's reference line for a ship of this class.
⚓ Lock-controlledLocks hold the level on this stretch, so low water rarely stops a ship here. High water,
maintenance, closures, restrictions on the locks and the cruise line's own decision can still affect a day.
— No line publishedThe reading is real. Nobody publishes a level for this stretch to measure it against.
— No reading yetWe include this location on your daily schedule but there is no data available.
— No gauge on this stretchWe watch no gauge on this stretch of river. There is no reading for the day and no line
to measure one against. We are not telling you the water is fine, and we are not telling you anything
holds it at a working level — those are things we have not established here.
⚑ In portThe ship is in port on this day. Our record holds no river transit for it, so there is
no stretch of river to read. That is what we hold, not a claim about where the ship goes.
⌂ Not sailingThe ship does not sail on this day. Your itinerary spends it on land, so there is no
river level to read and no low-water question to answer.
A gauge level is not the depth of the navigable channel, not the room under your ship's keel,
and not your ship's draft. The rain forecast further down uses one more status of its own,
temporarily unavailable, when that feed is missing or out of date.
The official forward outlook
Waterlogged does not provide its own independent future river depth forecast. We show
today's gauge reading and compare them with our own reference lines and other historic
data. Where Waterlogged has received licenses, it includes river forecasts and clearly
identifies the sources where they are from. Waterlogged provides direct links to the gauge
forecasts from national providers. BfG has given us permission to show their six week
forecasts.
Your daily sailing schedule
Below are the ports you travel to and the depth of the water, as of today's date, and how much
water is needed for your ship to sail. A graph shows the median or normal river depth.
Two words will help. A A riverside station that measures the water level in centimetres against a fixed zero point. is a riverside station that
measures water level. Your ship's How deep a ship sits in the water. That depth sets how much water it needs underneath. is how deep it sits
in the water. This affects how much water it needs below the hull.
Day1–2
Bucharest
Tue 17 – Wed 18 November · Romania
⚑In port
The ship is in port on this day. Our record holds no river transit for it, so there is no stretch of river to read.
The ship is in port on this day.
Full details
Our record holds no river transit for this day, so there is no stretch of river being read for it
and no water level that applies to it.
Where the ship is
in port
River transit on record
none for this day
Level reading
none applies — no stretch of river is being read
This says what our record holds, not what the ship does. We are not telling you it stays
alongside, and we have not worked out whether locks hold any water near this city, so we do not say
either. On the days this route is on the river, the readings above and below say so.
Day3
Ruse
Thursday 19 November · Bulgaria
▼Far below the line
The measured level is under half of Waterlogged's reference line for a ship of this class.
-10752 cm
Scale 0–100 cm
159 cm below Waterlogged’s reference line
That is how far today's measured level sits below the line we estimate a ship of this class needs.
The level it is measured against is our own estimate, not a figure from the cruise line.
Water level now (6 September)
-107 cm
Published An authority's published low-level mark for a stretch. It is not a requirement for your ship. for this stretch
52 cm
⬇Falling — the river level fell 3 cm in the last three days.
Water levels are measured at the Ruse gauge – Observation from Bulgaria's Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River, at Ruse. It surveys and maintains the Bulgarian Danube and publishes its gauge readings., the Bulgarian Danube authority, provided through The European River Information Services portal. It republishes official river data from member countries.. Published low-water reference — the waterway authority's own figure for this stretch, not a requirement set by your cruise line.
We do not draw a measured history graph for this gauge. The reading above is current and official; the archive the graph would be drawn from is not ours to republish.
Official forecast: ИАППД water-level forecast — Ruse, about six days ahead
Published by Bulgaria's Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River, at Ruse. It surveys and maintains the Bulgarian Danube and publishes its gauge readings., the Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River.
No German or Austrian product reaches this stretch. The Bulgarian Danube agency publishes its own forward table, and it is the only one there is here: a maximum, a forecast and a minimum for each of about six days.
Find the row for Ruse. The page is in Bulgarian, and the station names are the same ones this page uses.
Don't be surprised by a minus sign. Each gauge's zero is a fixed mark set long ago, not the riverbed, and on this stretch the summer river sits below it. A reading of −124 cm is a real measurement, not an error.
Compare each day's number with the An authority's published low-level mark for a stretch. It is not a requirement for your ship. for this stretch, shown above. That figure is the Danube Commission's low navigable water level, published by the same agency that publishes the reading — it is theirs, not ours, and it is not a requirement set by your cruise line.
The measured level is under half of Waterlogged's reference line for a ship of this class.
-6795 cm
Scale 0–200 cm
162 cm below Waterlogged’s reference line
That is how far today's measured level sits below the line we estimate a ship of this class needs.
The level it is measured against is our own estimate, not a figure from the cruise line.
Water level now (6 September)
-67 cm
Published An authority's published low-level mark for a stretch. It is not a requirement for your ship. for this stretch
95 cm
⬇Falling — the river level fell 6 cm in the last three days.
Water levels are measured at the Novo Selo gauge – Observation from Bulgaria's Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River, at Ruse. It surveys and maintains the Bulgarian Danube and publishes its gauge readings., the Bulgarian Danube authority, provided through The European River Information Services portal. It republishes official river data from member countries.. Published low-water reference — the waterway authority's own figure for this stretch, not a requirement set by your cruise line.
We do not draw a measured history graph for this gauge. The reading above is current and official; the archive the graph would be drawn from is not ours to republish.
Official river information: ИАППД water levels — Novo Selo
Published by Bulgaria's Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River, at Ruse. It surveys and maintains the Bulgarian Danube and publishes its gauge readings., the Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River.
Nobody publishes a forecast for this gauge. The Bulgarian Danube agency's forward table covers Oryahovo, Nikopol, Svishtov, Ruse and Silistra, and Novo Selo is not one of them. What the agency does publish is the measured level, daily, for twenty stations along the Bulgarian bank.
Find the row for Novo Selo. The page is in Bulgarian, and it gives the level, the change over the last twenty-four hours and the water temperature.
Don't be surprised by a minus sign. Each gauge's zero is a fixed mark set long ago, not the riverbed, and on this stretch the summer river sits below it. A reading of −124 cm is a real measurement, not an error.
Compare each day's number with the An authority's published low-level mark for a stretch. It is not a requirement for your ship. for this stretch, shown above. That figure is the Danube Commission's low navigable water level, published by the same agency that publishes the reading — it is theirs, not ours, and it is not a requirement set by your cruise line.
We watch no gauge on this stretch of river. There is no reading for this day and no line to measure one against.
We watch no gauge on this stretch of river.
Full details
The ship crosses this stretch on this day. We watch no gauge on it, so there is no reading for the
day and no line to measure one against.
Stretch on record
Lower Danube · Serbia
Gauge we watch here
none
Level reading
none — no gauge of ours is on this stretch
Comparison line
none — there is no reading to compare
This says what we hold, not what the river is doing. We are not telling you the water is
fine, and we are not telling you anything holds it at a working level — we have established
neither here, and we would rather leave the day blank than fill it in. We name no waterway authority
for this stretch either, because until we read a gauge on it we cannot say whose it would be.
Day6
Belgrade
Sunday 22 November · Serbia
—No gauge on this stretch
We watch no gauge on this stretch of river. There is no reading for this day and no line to measure one against.
We watch no gauge on this stretch of river.
Full details
The ship crosses this stretch on this day. We watch no gauge on it, so there is no reading for the
day and no line to measure one against.
Stretch on record
Lower Danube · Serbia
Gauge we watch here
none
Level reading
none — no gauge of ours is on this stretch
Comparison line
none — there is no reading to compare
This says what we hold, not what the river is doing. We are not telling you the water is
fine, and we are not telling you anything holds it at a working level — we have established
neither here, and we would rather leave the day blank than fill it in. We name no waterway authority
for this stretch either, because until we read a gauge on it we cannot say whose it would be.
Day7
Osijek
Monday 23 November · Croatia
—No gauge on this stretch
We watch no gauge on this stretch of river. There is no reading for this day and no line to measure one against.
We watch no gauge on this stretch of river.
Full details
The ship crosses this stretch on this day. We watch no gauge on it, so there is no reading for the
day and no line to measure one against.
Stretch on record
Lower Danube · Croatia
Gauge we watch here
none
Level reading
none — no gauge of ours is on this stretch
Comparison line
none — there is no reading to compare
This says what we hold, not what the river is doing. We are not telling you the water is
fine, and we are not telling you anything holds it at a working level — we have established
neither here, and we would rather leave the day blank than fill it in. We name no waterway authority
for this stretch either, because until we read a gauge on it we cannot say whose it would be.
Day8
Kalocsa
Tuesday 24 November · Hungary
—No gauge on this stretch
We watch no gauge on this stretch of river. There is no reading for this day and no line to measure one against.
We watch no gauge on this stretch of river.
Full details
The ship crosses this stretch on this day. We watch no gauge on it, so there is no reading for the
day and no line to measure one against.
Stretch on record
Lower Danube · Hungary
Gauge we watch here
none
Level reading
none — no gauge of ours is on this stretch
Comparison line
none — there is no reading to compare
This says what we hold, not what the river is doing. We are not telling you the water is
fine, and we are not telling you anything holds it at a working level — we have established
neither here, and we would rather leave the day blank than fill it in. We name no waterway authority
for this stretch either, because until we read a gauge on it we cannot say whose it would be.
Day9–11
Budapest
Wed 25 – Fri 27 November · Hungary
▼Far below the line
The measured level is under half of Waterlogged's reference line for a ship of this class.
2260175 cm
Scale 0–250 cm
38 cm below Waterlogged’s reference line
That is how far today's measured level sits below the line we estimate a ship of this class needs.
The level it is measured against is our own estimate, not a figure from the cruise line.
Water level now (6 September)
22 cm
Waterlogged’s Waterlogged's estimated level for this stretch, set from the measured record rather than from any ship's draught. In 35 years of readings, every day of the cruise season below it fell inside a disruption somebody documented at the time. It is a gauge level, not a depth under a ship, and no authority or cruise line publishes it.
60 cm
Normal for 25 November (median for 1991–2025)
175 cm
⬇Falling — the river level fell 14 cm in the last three days.
On the record: For 1991–2025, we checked the eleven days around this date. Budapest’s lowest daily average was 47 cm, in 2018. Today’s reading is 22. That is below every one of the 385 readings in that window.
Water levels are measured at the Budapest gauge – Observation from Hungary's national water authority. Its forecasting service publishes the Budapest table. / General Directorate of Water Management, provided through The European River Information Services portal. It republishes official river data from member countries.. Waterlogged estimated level — our own level for this stretch, set from 35 years of records: every cruise-season day below it fell within a documented disruption. No authority publishes a figure here.
Current level
Past average for this date
WLSN — Waterlogged’s Waterlogged's estimated level for this stretch, set from the measured record rather than from any ship's draught. In 35 years of readings, every day of the cruise season below it fell inside a disruption somebody documented at the time. It is a gauge level, not a depth under a ship, and no authority or cruise line publishes it. (60 cm)
Measured level below that line
EuRIS official water-level prediction for Budapest, from originator Országos Vízügyi Főigazgatóság (OVF) · Waterlogged retrieved this prediction: 6 Sep 2026, 12:16 CEST · API/Service Hydrometeo v3 incorporated from EuRIS (eurisportal.eu) · Országos Vízügyi Főigazgatóság (OVF) / General Directorate of Water Management
Current and normal water levels. The solid blue line shows the current measured water level. The dashed grey line is the historic average of the water level from July 29th until December 1st. The bold dashed line labelled WLSN is the water level a ship of this class needs — Waterlogged's reference line for a ship of this class: 60 cm. It is a gauge level, not a depth under the hull. Today's water sits 178 cm below the normal water level for this date. During your shaded cruise dates the normal water level is 173 cm on 17 November and 175 cm on 27 November. The water level at this location historically keeps falling over the next three months.
The official prediction for this gauge
📈EuRIS official water-level prediction for Budapest Waterlogged retrieved this prediction: 6 Sep 2026, 12:16 CEST
EuRIS official water-level prediction for Budapest
API/Service Hydrometeo v3 incorporated from EuRIS (eurisportal.eu).
Waterlogged retrieved this prediction: 6 Sep 2026, 12:16 CEST.
Országos Vízügyi Főigazgatóság (OVF) / General Directorate of Water Management — EuRIS names Országos Vízügyi Főigazgatóság (OVF) as the source of this gauge series.
EuRIS publishes no issue time with this prediction, so the time above is when we retrieved it, not when EuRIS made it.
EuRIS's own predicted figures for Budapest, in cm at the gauge.
Time at the gauge
Water level (cm)
Sun 6 Sep, 19:00
21
Mon 7 Sep, 01:00
18
Mon 7 Sep, 07:00
15
Mon 7 Sep, 13:00
12
Mon 7 Sep, 19:00
9
Tue 8 Sep, 01:00
7
Tue 8 Sep, 07:00
5
Tue 8 Sep, 13:00
5
Tue 8 Sep, 19:00
4
Wed 9 Sep, 01:00
5
Wed 9 Sep, 07:00
5
Wed 9 Sep, 13:00
6
Wed 9 Sep, 19:00
6
Thu 10 Sep, 01:00
7
Thu 10 Sep, 07:00
7
Thu 10 Sep, 13:00
10
Thu 10 Sep, 19:00
13
Fri 11 Sep, 01:00
19
Fri 11 Sep, 07:00
25
Fri 11 Sep, 13:00
33
Fri 11 Sep, 19:00
40
Sat 12 Sep, 01:00
47
Sat 12 Sep, 07:00
53
23 figures, from Sun 6 Sep, 19:00 to Sat 12 Sep, 07:00, in local time at the gauge.
Every figure is EuRIS's own, in centimetres at the gauge. Nothing between two figures is filled in by us, and nothing is added beyond the last one.
EuRIS prediction run 7b297e1b-cdc9-4a51-854b-8feddee4e468.
Predicted water levels are from EuRIS. Waterlogged only reports historical and current data.
Every figure above is a water level at the gauge, in centimetres. It is not
the depth of water under a ship and it is not a ship's draft.
Official forecast: Hungary's national water authority. Its forecasting service publishes the Budapest table. water-level forecast for Budapest
Published by Országos Vízjelző Szolgálat (The Hungarian national forecasting service. It publishes the Budapest forecast under OVF.), Hungary’s national forecasting service, under OVF.
The button below opens the official water-level forecast for this stretch — a simple table, about six days ahead. It shows the level in centimetres at the Budapest gauge, the same way this page shows it, so the numbers line up directly.
Don't be surprised by a negative number: the gauge's zero point sits above the riverbed, so readings below zero are real measurements, not errors.
As you read the forecast, compare each day's number with the Waterlogged's estimated level for this stretch, set from the measured record rather than from any ship's draught. In 35 years of readings, every day of the cruise season below it fell inside a disruption somebody documented at the time. It is a gauge level, not a depth under a ship, and no authority or cruise line publishes it. line — our estimated level for this stretch, set from 35 years of records: every cruise-season day below it fell within a documented disruption. That estimate is ours alone: no cruise line or authority publishes an official figure here.
Rain forecast by Open-Meteo (commercial licence) · fetched 6 September 2026 at 05:16 UTC · covering 14 days, 6 September to 19 September.
Rain can raise the water level of a river but there is no fixed rule on how much it does.
We only report how much the quantity of rainfall has changed the water level before under
similar conditions. It is context, not a prediction of a river level.
●Licensed rain forecast + what the water level has actually done before
The detailed weather forecast for your route
All rain forecasts use the same scale, 0–12 mm of rain a day, so you
can compare them directly. Each column is one day, with its date at the top, then the sky for
that day and the daily high in °C.
Rain forecast by Open-Meteo (commercial licence) · fetched 6 September 2026 at 05:16 UTC · covering 14 days, 6 September to 19 September.
Rain forecast by Open-Meteo (commercial licence) · fetched 6 September 2026 at 05:16 UTC · covering 14 days, 6 September to 19 September.
In our 25 years of Budapest records, rain of this size has moved the water level here by a few centimetres at a time. Today’s level sits 153 cm below normal for the date. It would take far more than this to close that.
This is our reading of the rain forecast, based on what rain has actually done to this river in past years. It is not an official river forecast.
How rain reaches the river — the rules we use
the stages, the half-lives and the 2003 warning behind every line above
How rain becomes a water level
A river responds to rain in stages. A nearby shower may matter less than rain far upstream.
Rain fallsWhere the rain lands matters as much as the total.
Ground takes a shareDry ground can hold most of the first rain.
Tributaries bring it downWater arrives from different Side rivers and streams that feed the main river at different times. at different times.
The gauge gets a pulseA A short rise that has travelled downstream after rain further up the river. can briefly raise the level at the gauge.
Baseflow settles itThe slow supply of stored water that keeps a river running between periods of rain. is the slower supply of stored water. It decides where the level settles.
Why winter rain often does more
Winter ground is usually wetter and cooler. Plants use less water then. Less water also
evaporates. More of the same rain can reach the river. In high summer, dry soil and growing
plants take more water first. Less water then flows over the land into the river.
What "half-life" means here
The How long half of an unusual water-level difference has historically taken to fade. is based on past records. It is the time for half the extra
height above the usual seasonal level to fade. It describes persistence, not how many
centimetres a storm will add.
Estimated half-life of unusual levels at eligible route gauges
Read the difference carefully. A longer summer value at the
Rhine gauges does not mean summer rain adds more water. It means an unusual measured level faded more
slowly in that set of calendar dates. The block names come from the parameter file; they are not
weather seasons or a rain-to-level formula.
Rules of thumb
Use these to read a wet outlook — not to predict a sailing-day level.
After a long dry period, the first roughly 10 mm may mainly soak the
soil. Do not expect much change at the gauge before that.
Source: waterlogged/rain_explainer.py → transfer_function.soil_absorption_first_mm.value_mm = 10; explicitly qualitative, not a fitted gauge coefficient.
Look downstream after about 1 day Basel–Maxau, 1–1½ days
Maxau–Kaub and ½–1 day Kaub–Cologne; Austrian Danube events spanned
60–118 hours, so there is no honest fixed Danube clock.
Sources: docs/council_alignment/lens_hydrology.md gives Rhine flood-wave and falling-water travel times. docs/climate_evidence_wide_signals.md gives the "Travel time & Alpine share" event range and the no-fixed-lag rule.
A routed rain pulse can briefly raise a gauge. Baseflow is the slower supply
of stored water. It decides where the level settles.
Source: waterlogged/rain_explainer.py gives the wording about a rain pulse in each season. The figures in the table above are the fitted half_life_days from drift_params.json.
That is the calculation you have just read. The licence turns this panel from
a list of links into a daily reading. It still stops where the evidence stops.
How to read every number on this page
"Water level now" is the authority's measured reading at the gauge named on this page. It uses centimetres from that The fixed zero point for a gauge's centimetre scale. It can sit above the riverbed.. It is a level, not a depth of water under your ship. It is not the depth of the The navigable channel where ships are meant to pass. either, and it is not your ship's How deep a ship sits in the water. That depth sets how much water it needs underneath..
"Water level a ship of this class needs" — written WLSN at each end of its bold dashed line on the graphs — is Waterlogged's own arithmetic on published reference figures for that stretch and the draft we assume for that class. It is our line, plainly labelled, and it is not the operator's decision to sail.
The seasonal graph shows two different things. Left of the today line, solid blue shows the levels that were measured. Right of it, the dashed line shows the historical average for each date. It comes from what these gauges recorded on that date in past years. It is not a forecast of this autumn, and we do not draw one. We show it because that average keeps falling through October. That is useful to know before you sail.
Where a line comes from the record — Budapest — the page says so. There is still no maintained-depth model published for the Hungarian Danube, so instead of guessing at one we set our level from what actually happened: in 35 years of readings, every cruise-season day below it fell within a disruption somebody documented at the time.
Where no mark exists — Kienstock — we show the reading and the official marks and stop there.
Where the numbers come from. Measured levels for Kaub, Cologne, Pfelling and
Hofkirchen are verified daily averages from Germany's official service for live and archived federal waterway gauge readings.. They cover 2015–2026 and
are topped up from the live archive. Budapest and Kienstock readings come through The European River Information Services portal. It republishes official river data from member countries.
and Austria's Danube River Information Services site for water levels and navigation notices.. For those two the solid line on the graph is drawn from our own recording of
that live feed, which began in July 2026, so it is short and grows by a day each day; the graph says where it starts.
The longer measured archive behind Kienstock is not ours to republish, so we do not draw it and we print no
record sentence for it. For Budapest that changed on 17 August 2026: the General Directorate of Water Management
gave us written permission to publish its own archive, and the average for each date now stands on
35 years of it. Each "normal for this date"
uses a 31-day circular The middle past value for that date. Half of past years were higher and half were lower. — the middle value, so half of past years were
higher and half lower. The averages use 12 years of records on the German gauges,
35 years on Budapest and 25 years on Kienstock, from the projection engine's own
doy_median_cm arrays. Record lines use an eleven-day window centred on the port's own date, across each
gauge's whole archive. Budapest's levels come from Országos Vízügyi Főigazgatóság (OVF) / General Directorate of
Water Management; where we work them into an average, those input data originate from the General Directorate of
Water Management.
Nothing here is a forecast. The trend and the graph describe measured moves that have already happened. We do not model your cruise and we do not give you a percentage chance of anything.
The numbers on this page stay free.
You are not paying for anything. The daily update — which includes a river companion on your sailing — is free to your inbox.
If you want us to read this sailing every morning and send it to your inbox, the Daily River Log Watch is free for your sailing. Nothing to pay, nothing renews. The last morning is the morning after you leave the ship.
Every morning until the morning after you leave the ship: the reading on the gauge that governs your stretch, what changed overnight, and the river companion — the story of the water you are sailing on. Free.
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