Mauthausen

Mauthausen is a town of 4,975 people on the left bank of the Danube, fifteen kilometres east of Linz, and its gauge reads the river at kilometre 2110.98, close to the mouth of the Enns, the river that separates Upper from Lower Austria. The Danube water level at Mauthausen is measured against a zero fixed at 235.98 metres above the Adriatic; low water starts at 379 centimetres, high water at 499, and the 2020 mean is 425. At 08:15 on 25 October 2026 the gauge showed 431 centimetres, five below the thirty-year normal for that date.

Under the Memorial on the Hill

Above the town stands the Mauthausen memorial, opened in 1949 on the ground of the camp where some 200,000 people were held between 1938 and 1945 and more than 100,000 died. Down at the water the equipment is quieter: a recording gauge with a data logger, read by viadonau, whose figures reach the DoRIS system about six hours later.

The 2002 Record and the 2013 Flood

The highest daily value in the series shown is 864 centimetres, on 13 August 2002. In June 2013 the river stopped at 844, after thirteen days above the high-water mark. Neither level closes the Danube to shipping: in Austria the river is shut as a rule only 90 centimetres above the highest navigable stage, which here means 589. A hundred-year flood would climb to 891.

Low Water Without a Dry Day

The dry side of the record is quieter. In 2026 the minimum was 421 centimetres, forty-two above low water; 2018 also fell to 421 and 2022 to 425. No year in the series has a single day below 379, and the lowest reading remains 388, from 7 November 1983. Thirty-four kilometres upstream, the water of the Linz area is already caught at the Wilhering gauge; thirty-one kilometres below, the Grein gauge opens the Strudengau, the stretch where the river narrows before the Wachau.

The daily series begins on 1 January 1976 and holds 17,537 station-days, with a mean of 448 cm; no day stood below the low-water mark, and 308 rose above the high-water mark. The highest level came on 13 August 2002 at 864 cm, the lowest on 7 November 1983 at 388. At 22:15 on 25 October 2026 the gauge read 432 cm, four below the day's normal of 436; no forecast is issued.