Northwest Europe Floods

Monitoring | Summary
Posting Date: January 5, 2024, 6:00:00 AM

Parts of Germany and France have been battered by flooding over the past several days, leading to numerous flood warnings and evacuations.  Among the worst impacted areas are parts of Thuringia, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, as well as Brittany and Nord-Pas-de-Calais in France.  Both countries have requested support from the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. 

Persistent rainfall over the past few weeks has been the main driver of the flooding.  In Lower Saxony, there has been major flooding in agricultural areas, putting the potato and sugar beet harvests in those regions at risk.  Elsewhere in Germany, the towns of Fulda, on the Fulda river, and Lahn, which borders a tributary of the Rhine river with the same name, were among the worst affected. To the south, near the Bavarian border, towns and villages in Lower Franconia also remained waterlogged. A 73 year-old man was reported to have been killed by flood waters in Nantes, France, found in his car after flood waters had subsided somewhat. 

The forecast calls for rain to continue in much of the affected area into Friday, with colder temperatures on the horizon as well which could further exacerbate impacts, though the hope is that the drier weather coming through the weekend into early next week will lessen some of the potential for further flooding.

More information on some of the flooded areas in Germany are available (or will be in the coming days) through the Copernicus Emergency Management Service Rapid Mapping offering.

The Verisk ALERT team is closely monitoring this situation and will provide updates as warranted.  In the meantime, please contact your Verisk representative with any additional questions on this event.

Monitoring | Downloads
Posting Date: January 5, 2024, 6:00:00 AM