First drought, now flood?
Current assessments for the district of Miesbach
Created: 08/19/2022, 07:00
By: Sebastian Grauvogl
The German Weather Service warns of extreme storms due to continuous rain (purple color) for the entire district of Miesbach.
© Screenshot DWD.de
It sounds almost paradoxical.
In the district of Miesbach, streams are increasingly drying up and green areas are turning brown.
At the same time, the weather services are forecasting heavy rain with flooding.
District
– The flood news service Bavaria issued warnings for the neighboring district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen on Thursday.
The district of Miesbach could follow on Friday, said Andreas Holderer, deputy head of the water management office in Rosenheim, yesterday when asked.
However, he doubts whether this will alleviate the drought in the long term.
The drought in the Miesbach district has not yet reached historic proportions, explains Holderer.
The situation is still comparable to 2018, 2015 and 2003.
The effects are felt differently depending on the location.
While the Mangfall is still sufficiently fed by the Tegernsee reservoir, the levels of other rivers and especially streams are already very low.
Still no explanation for fluctuating Schlierach level
As an example, Holderer cites the Schlierach in Miesbach, where a (still) inexplicable phenomenon has been observed here in the past few days.
At night, the amount of discharge increased almost by leaps and bounds before dropping sharply again during the day.
According to Holderer, a natural cause is ruled out: "It wasn't raining."
It looks more like someone pumping water out of the river during the day to water their garden or fill their private swimming pool, Holderer suspects.
The discharge volume of the Schlierach in Miesbach has moved up and down in the past few days.
And that even though it didn't rain.
The water board is still looking for an explanation.
Graphic: HND BAYERN © HND BAYERN
In this context, the deputy head of the water management office urges all citizens not to withdraw any water from natural water bodies during the dry period.
Since the rivers and streams could heat up even more as a result, the oxygen content would drop, which would cause fish to die even faster.
"The trout then almost boil," warns Holderer.
DWD warns of extremely heavy continuous rain
However, cooling in the form of rain is in sight.
The German Weather Service (DWD) issued a storm warning of "extremely heavy continuous rain" on Thursday.
Between 80 and 140 liters per square meter are expected for the Miesbach district by Saturday morning.
So do people have to prepare for a catastrophe like 2013?
No, says Holderer.
Because of the weeks of drought, the danger this time is not in the river levels, but rather in selective flash floods.
These could arise because the soil is locally as hard as concrete and can therefore hardly absorb any water.
Especially not in such large quantities in such a short time.
Holderer therefore does not anticipate a sustained relaxation of the drought.
This would probably require four weeks of moderate continuous rain with a slow build-up of the groundwater level.
so called
