The storm “Zoltan” has now moved to the Baltic States, but the influence of low pressure remains in Germany. This is also evident in Bavaria: the rain and wind have remained, and there is no white Christmas this year.
The first holiday in the Free State is also cloudy and rainy, the snowfall limit is 2200 to 2500 meters. Only in the foothills of the Alps will it remain dry on Monday with “more sun than clouds”, as the German Weather Service (DWD) announced. It is still stormy, especially in the mountains. Meteorologists expect hurricane-force gusts of around 110 kilometers per hour to reach the summit of the Bavarian Forest and the Alps. In the lowlands the stormy gusts are expected to ease somewhat over the course of the day.
It will remain mild in the coming days. The DWD expects temperatures of seven and twelve degrees on Tuesday. In the south it should also be dry and partly sunny for now. The forecasts show rain for the north of Bavaria, which is why the flood intelligence service (HND) continues to expect a tense situation.
The flood situation has largely calmed down
In the other regions the flood situation is easing somewhat. The Flood Intelligence Service (HND) no longer speaks of a tense situation. “We will continue to monitor this, but since there is no significant rainfall input, it is relatively predictable how the flood waves will unfold,” said a spokesman. The flooding would now shift primarily to the lower reaches, such as the Danube, the Upper Main, the Regen and the Franconian Saale.
In most areas, the water levels are remaining the same or falling, the police headquarters in Upper and Middle Franconia and Lower Bavaria announced on Monday. “The flooding has leveled off a bit,” said a spokesman for the Upper Franconia Presidium. However, according to the local spokesman, the levels are rising slightly in Lower Franconia. Some parking spaces have already been cleared. In the Upper Palatinate, too, the water levels of the Danube in Regensburg and the Regen are still high.
Franconia and eastern Bavaria are particularly affected by flooding. At the weekend, many districts had exceeded HND reporting level 3, and in some cases also level 4. The HND is warning of flooding of individual built-up properties or of flooding on a larger scale. On Sunday evening, the service reported a decreasing number of levels exceeding reporting levels. However, two rivers in the Upper Franconian communities of Rödental and Neustadt (Coburg district) were still just above the level 4 reporting limit.
There were isolated operations due to the flooding on Christmas Eve and the night of Christmas Day. In Nabburg (Schwandorf district) a canoeist capsized on the Naab. He was able to save himself from the river and emergency services recovered the canoe further downstream. A 73-year-old overlooked several barriers in Metten (Deggendorf district) and drove his car into the water. Emergency services took the slightly hypothermic man to the hospital.
Ski operations affected
Strong winds also partially affected skiing on Christmas Eve. The Bavarian Zugspitzbahn reported “out of service” on its homepage for the cable car to Germany’s highest mountain. The cable cars are running again on Christmas Day and most of the slopes are open. At Sudelfeld near Bayrischzell and in the Spitzingsee area, where the lifts were closed on Saturday due to the storm, skiing has been running again since Christmas Eve. However, according to the homepage, the gondola lift at Ochsenkopf in the Fichtelgebirge remained closed on the first public holiday. It should officially start on Friday. But the weather didn’t cooperate: the train couldn’t run because of the storm, and there was still no dense blanket of snow in the northern Bavarian low mountain range. In the future, 40 ten-person gondolas will take up to 2,000 people per hour up the 1,024 meter high mountain.
Storm “Zoltan”: Hundreds of operations in Bavaria
Emergency services were deployed hundreds of times in Bavaria because of the storm “Zoltan” on Saturday and on the night of Christmas Eve. However, there were no major operations or storm damage, police headquarters said on Sunday. The emergency services mainly had to deal with fallen trees, loose roof parts and fallen power lines.
No restrictions on rail traffic
Just in time for Christmas Eve there is good news for rail travelers in Bavaria: “Travel traffic is rolling,” said a spokeswoman for Deutsche Bahn on Sunday. After storm “Zoltan” caused closures, delays and train cancellations, there were no restrictions on the railway lines in the Free State, according to information from Sunday afternoon.
Deutsche Bahn has said it has been using 60 additional trains since Thursday and until New Year’s Day. They travel on routes that are in high demand, such as Cologne-Frankfurt-Stuttgart-Munich. For the last week of the year, the railway expects evenly distributed high demand.