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:
“As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of father-daughter incest will prevail.”
—Judith Lewis Herman (b. 1942)
“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)
“The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 7:25.