Guide
When to go
Risk is not spread evenly through the season. Spring sails on snowmelt: May and June are reliably the safest months on the Rhine and Danube. Late summer and fall are the gamble. The Alpine snowpack is spent, and everything depends on rain that may not come. December's Christmas market season, the busiest weeks of the year, runs on the year's lowest water, because winter precipitation falls as snow and stays on the mountain until spring.
The calendars below are live. Months with a dot use the current forecast, the rest use thirty-year odds, and every number updates as the gauges and rainfall move. Click through to a river for the detail behind it.
Rhine
risk = low water
91
76
66
47
32
27
28
50
40
20
13
20
Aug*
Sep*
Oct*
Nov*
Dec*
Jan*
Feb*
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Last five years, month by month
2025 (top row) to 2021: marks are months that hit low water · solid = a week or more
Danube
risk = low water
75
59
56
53
51
48
46
53
10
7
17
27
Aug*
Sep*
Oct*
Nov*
Dec*
Jan*
Feb*
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Last five years, month by month
2025 (top row) to 2021: marks are months that hit low water · solid = a week or more
Elbe
risk = low water
66
48
48
38
24
19
19
20
13
20
10
23
Aug*
Sep*
Oct*
Nov*
Dec*
Jan*
Feb*
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Last five years, month by month
2025 (top row) to 2021: marks are months that hit low water · solid = a week or more
Seine
risk = high water
1
1
1
1
13
18
19
40
13
17
3
0
Aug*
Sep*
Oct*
Nov*
Dec*
Jan*
Feb*
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Last five years, month by month
2025 (top row) to 2021: marks are months that hit high water · solid = a week or more