The season so far · Saturday, August 15, 2026
The lowest water in thirty years
The Rhine gauge at Kaub read 10 centimeters this morning. Since January the Danube has spent 118 days below the flow where ships start to have trouble, and the Rhine 100. Our records go back to 1997, and no year in them comes close to this one.
If you have a cruise booked, that sounds like bad news. Usually it isn't, and it's worth a minute to say why.
How this year compares
We count a low-water day the same way in every year. When the river drops below the flow where ships start having trouble at its shallowest point, that day counts. The rule for 1998 is the rule for 2026. The counts below run to August 15 in every year, so a season that isn't finished is compared with the same stretch of the ones before it.
Rhine
highest on record
100
19972026
100 days so far. The old high was 85 in 2011.
Danube
highest on record
118
19972026
118 days so far. The old high was 66 in 1998.
Elbe
highest on record
69
19972026
69 days so far. The old high was 50 in 2014.
The Danube is the one that stands out. Its worst year before this was 1998, with 66 days by the middle of August. This year it has 118. The Rhine has passed 2011 by a fortnight, and the Elbe has passed 2014.
The Seine is having an ordinary year. Its trouble is high water rather than low, and it sits 11th of 30, which is about the middle of the pack.
What it means if you're sailing
Low water rarely cancels a cruise. Most of the time the ship carries less weight through the shallow stretch and you notice nothing at all. If the water keeps dropping, the line moves you onto a sister ship waiting on the other side of the shallow part, with a coach ride in between. In a longer spell the ship stays where it is and you see the towns by coach. Cancellations do happen. They are the rare end of it.
The lines have had practice. The Rhine had hard years in 2011 and 2022, and the ship swaps that once felt improvised are now something crews do as a matter of routine. If you want the detail, we wrote it all out in what low water means.
When the water comes back
A wet week helps a little. What actually refills these rivers is winter rain, and then the Alpine snowmelt that runs down through May and June. That pattern hasn't changed. You can see it in the Rhine's next twelve months below: the odds ease through the winter and the spring months look ordinary again.
92
76
66
47
32
27
28
50
40
20
13
20
Aug*
Sep*
Oct*
Nov*
Dec*
Jan*
Feb*
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
If you are sailing next year, this summer doesn't tell you much about your dates.
If you're sailing soon
Check your dates. You get the odds for your exact window, day by day, and what the same dates did in each of the last five years. If your cruise is further out, you can leave us your email on that page and we'll write to you if the outlook for your dates changes.
Where these numbers come from
The counts on this page come from the European Union's GloFAS river flow record, which runs from 1997 to today, and they are worked out again every morning. This morning's gauge readings come from WSV PEGELONLINE in Germany and Vigicrues in France. The method is written up in full on how it works.
One thing worth saying plainly. These counts are modeled river flow, not the numbers painted on the gauge boards at Kaub or Dresden. Flow is the fairer way to put thirty years on one scale, but it does mean our count for an older year can differ from what a particular gauge showed in a particular week.
Journalists and researchers are welcome to the underlying figures: departures.json, rivers.json and gauges.json are open, and this page explains how to cite them. Page last updated August 15, 2026.