Metre-high icebergs float down Elbe near Hamburg

Residents in Geesthacht, just west of Hamburg, are wondering at the metre-high icebergs which have arrived on the banks of the River Elbe following the most recent cold snap.

Hamburgers wonder at icebergs

For the past few days, a fleet of 10 ice-breaker boats has been cruising the Elbe to break up the frozen river and make way for boats to pass. Now, detached icebergs, some of which are up to a metre high, have floated into shallow water and are resting on the riverbanks in Geesthacht.

“We haven’t had such great ice and such great weather like this for 12 years,” Marion Moschüring told ZDF heute. “It’s really wonderful”. Moschüring was among many residents who had taken a trip to the banks to look at the bergs.

“Initially I thought they would just be 50 centimetres high or so, but I am almost in the Antarctic and I’m looking around to see if I can see any polar bears, but unfortunately I only see cormorants,” Rudolf Kalweit told the programme.

In order for the disrupted ice to move along, there would need to be at least 500.000 litres of water per second flowing downstream, Adreas Schultz of the Special Ship Fleet of the Waterways and Shipping Authority (WSA) explained. Recently, there has only been a downstream flow of around 300.000 litres per second.

More cold weather and snow expected in Germany

With more cold weather heading to Germany, the bergs could be there for a while. According to a forecast from The Weather Channel, temperatures will start to drop towards the end of this week.

While a Siberian wind previously forecast to cross Germany has diverted to Sweden, on January 23, residents in eastern federal states could still feel temperatures drop to as low as -15 degrees celsius.

A storm currently crossing the Mediterranean is likely to bring fresh snow. From Saturday morning, between 10 and 15 centimetres of snow has been forecast for southern and central parts of the country.