2002 European Floods - Development of The Floods

Development of The Floods

Flooding resulted from the passage of two Genoa low pressure systems (named Hanne and Ilse by the Free University of Berlin) which brought warm moist air from the Mediterranean northwards. The effects of El Niño are believed to have possibly contributed although others disagree. The floods started with heavy rainfall in the Eastern Alps, which resulted in floods in Northern Italy, Bavaria and the Austrian states of Salzburg and Upper Austria. The floods gradually moved eastwards along the Danube, although the damage in the large cities on its shores was not as severe as in the areas affected by the floods later.

When the rainfall moved northeast to the Bohemian Forest and to the source areas of the Elbe and Vltava rivers, the result were catastrophic water levels first in the Austrian areas of Mühlviertel and Waldviertel and later in the Czech Republic, Thuringia and Saxony. Rivers changed their courses in unexpected ways, catching residents off guard. Several villages in Northern Bohemia, Thuringia and Saxony were more or less destroyed by rivers changing their courses or massively overflowing their banks.

Read more about this topic:  2002 European Floods

Famous quotes containing the words development of, development and/or floods:

    I hope I may claim in the present work to have made it probable that the laws of arithmetic are analytic judgments and consequently a priori. Arithmetic thus becomes simply a development of logic, and every proposition of arithmetic a law of logic, albeit a derivative one. To apply arithmetic in the physical sciences is to bring logic to bear on observed facts; calculation becomes deduction.
    Gottlob Frege (1848–1925)

    The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    And to your more bewitching, see the proud,
    Plump bed bear up, and swelling like a cloud,
    Tempting the two too modest; can
    Ye see it brustle like a swan,
    And you be cold
    To meet it when it woos and seems to fold
    The arms to hug you? Throw, throw
    Yourselves into the mighty overflow
    Of that white pride, and drown
    The night with you in floods of down.
    Robert Herrick (1591–1674)