Rhine Gauge — Overview
Status: Live since 2026-05-03 at https://rhein-pegel.duckdns.org
A private citizen-science project for real-time analysis of Rhine river gauges between Iffezheim and Mainz (162 km), with own data pipeline, hydraulic and signal-analytical evaluation, public dashboard and Pushover flood-warning alerts.
Project idea in one sentence¶
Derive physically interpretable variables from 15-minute water-level and discharge data of 11 gauge stations along a 162-km Rhine reach, validate against 26 years of archived data, train a 24-hour forecast model, validate it retrospectively against all 11 flood events 2018-2026, and present everything as a public live dashboard with interactive map animation.
Architecture overview (state 2026-05-06)¶
Pegelonline (WSV) Brightsky (Phase 7.1)
│ │
│ HTTPS, every 15 min │ hourly
▼ ▼
┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Hetzner CAX11 (NBG1) │
│ ┌─────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌────────────┐ │
│ │ Poller │→ │ InfluxDB │← │ Cron jobs │ │
│ │ (Python)│ │ (4 buckets│ │ propagate, │ │
│ │ │ │ ~10M pts) │ │ forecast, │ │
│ └─────────┘ └────┬─────┘ │ HW-alert │ │
│ │ └────────────┘ │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌─────────┐ │
│ │ Grafana │ ←── Caddy/HTTPS ──│── Internet
│ └─────────┘ │
│ ┌─────────┐ │
│ │ Leaflet │ ──── /maps/ ────│── Internet
│ └─────────┘ │
└────────────────────────────────────────────┘
↓
Pushover (HW alerts)
Stations (11 gauges, Iffezheim → Mainz + Raunheim/Main)¶
| Station | River-km | Discharge? | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iffezheim | 336.20 | yes | Entry to Upper Rhine weir chain |
| Plittersdorf | 340.20 | yes | Iffezheim impoundment |
| Maxau | 362.33 | yes | Most important southern forecast gauge |
| Philippsburg | 389.33 | no | ~12 h live latency |
| Speyer | 400.61 | yes | Entry to Upper Rhine plain |
| Mannheim (Rhine) | 424.73 | no | After Neckar confluence |
| Mannheim Neckar | 3.10 | no | Neckar-side |
| Worms | 443.37 | yes | Reference gauge for the Boathouse |
| Nierstein-Oppenheim | 480.61 | no | Mid-station |
| Mainz | 498.27 | yes | After Main confluence |
| Raunheim (Main) | 12.21 | yes | Main-side |
Phases (2-7, in order)¶
- Phase 2 — Hydraulics (NHN heights, longitudinal slope, cross-correlation, autocorrelation, Welch spectrum)
- Phase 3 — Routing & forecast baseline (Muskingum, ARX-SARIMAX)
- Phase 6 — Wave propagation map Worms→Nierstein (40 segments, ARX direct method)
- Phase 6c — Extension to 11 gauges + 24 h forecast + flood warner
- Phase 6d/6f — Local MNW/MHW colour scale, Muskingum sub-routing
- Phase 6e — Time-slider animation
- Phase 6g — Multi-event backtest (95 % pre-fire rate over all 11 events 2018-2026)
- Phase 6h — Conformal prediction with empirical residual quantiles
- Phase 6i — Operational hardening (backups, health-check)
- Phase 7.1 — DWD precipitation feature (ARX-v4)
- Phase 7.1b — DWD-ICON precipitation forecast as ARX feature (v5)
- Phase 7.1c — Real ECMWF-IFS reforecast archives (TIGGE) for honest forecast skill (v6)
The full scientific methodology with formulas, results and caveats is documented in Scientific methodology.
Live system¶
- Cron jobs every 15 min: live polling, wave propagation, flood alerts
- Cron jobs hourly: ARX forecasts +1…+72 h
- Live forecasts visible in Phase 3 dashboard
- Live wave map: welle.html
- Backtest June 2024 flood event: hw2024.html
Data sources¶
All training and validation uses publicly accessible open data sources. Detailed pipeline documentation in Data pipeline.
- WSV PEGELONLINE — gauge data (live + 26-year archive)
- DWD via Brightsky — precipitation observations + ICON-D2 forecasts
- ECMWF-IFS via TIGGE — historical reforecast archives 2018-2024
Contact¶
Andreas Gryczke — gryczkea@gmail.com