Flooding Rába expected to peak at record level on Monday evening

The National Water Management Directorate OVF has mobilised some 400 staff members from across the country to assist with flood defences at the Rába River. The authority has said the river is expected to peak at a record water level at Körmend near the Austrian border on Monday evening.

The weather in the Danube River basin will be determined by a frontal system that will be moving over the next few days. Already on Saturday evening and at night, several places, including the Rába catchment, were affected by an extremely heavy thunderstorm system, which brought down an extraordinary amount of precipitation in a short period of time.

The most extreme rainfall was recorded in the Strém and Pinka catchments, which received almost a month’s worth of rain in just 6 hours. According to the latest forecast, a further 10-20 mm on average is expected today. It is important to note that, although the chances of thunderstorms are foreseeable, their exact location and the exact amount and extent of their rainfall cannot be determined in advance.

The sudden downpours of rain will not be able to penetrate the already wet ground, and will cause severe water level rises in smaller streams: the highest water level ever recorded was 508 cm at the Pinkán Felsőcsatár at dawn.

The Rába peaked at Szentgotthárd on Sunday evening at 422 centimeters, a water level that required the highest third-degree alert, OVF said, adding that it was flooding “intensively.”

The staff has so far prepared 120,000 sandbags to build a 2.5 km flood defense barrier.

Flood alerts are in place on 912.4 kilometre-long river sections with a highest degree alert along 10.42 kms, said OVF.

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