Evening edition · Friday, 23 October 2026
The storm went west, the Rhine got a day
Storm Austen cut power to 288,600 homes in north-west France with gusts of 161 km/h. In Germany, the Rhine at Kaub spent its first full day this autumn above its 2018 low. The same weather system, two very different invoices.
Storm Austen, the first autumn storm of the year, crossed north-west France on Friday1. By Friday midday the grid operator Enedis counted about 288,600 homes without power: 148,500 in Brittany, 88,800 in Pays de la Loire, 49,600 in Normandy and 7,800 in Hauts-de-France1. Météo-France recorded gusts of 161 km/h at the Pointe du Raz in Finistère1. Firefighters in the department had intervened 384 times since the start of the episode, and three people in Brittany suffered electric shocks1. No serious injuries had been reported by midday1.
The trains and planes. Rail traffic was halted as a precaution on Normandy’s lines and partly in Brittany and the north, with disruption expected on Saturday too; flights at Roissy, Orly and Nantes were delayed or cancelled, and DFDS cancelled Dover–Calais crossings until Saturday morning1.
The river. Several hundred kilometres east, a quieter number moved, and in the right direction. The Rhine gauge at Kaub has stayed at or above 25 cm all day on Friday, between 25 and 29 cm, for a daily mean so far of 27.3 cm by 16:152. Twenty-five centimetres was the lowest daily reading of the 2010–2020 reference decade, set on 22 October 20182,4. Desk arithmetic: the thirty daily means before Friday all sat below it, five of them below zero. Discharge stood at 547 cubic metres a second at 16:003. This morning’s edition asked whether the day would hold. By 16:15, it had.
Line chart of the Rhine water level at the Kaub gauge from 23 September to 23 October 2026, as daily means of 15-minute readings in centimetres above the gauge zero, against a flat line at 25 cm, the lowest daily reading of the 2010–2020 reference period, set on 22 October 2018. Thirty daily means, 23 September to 22 October, sit below that line, five of them below zero, the lowest −4.8 cm on 1 October. The level recovers to 19.7 cm on 13 October, dips to 8.8 cm on 18 October and reaches 19.1 cm on 22 October. On 23 October, to 16:15, every 15-minute reading was at or above 25 cm, between 25 and 29 cm, for a daily mean so far of 27.3 cm; the last reading was 26 cm.
Source WSV / PEGELONLINE, Kaub (Rhein) water level, 15-minute raw values retrieved 23 Oct 2026 16:30 CEST · Datenlizenz Deutschland Zero 2.0 · daily means: desk arithmetic. Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsverwaltung des Bundes (WSV), PEGELONLINE. Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero – Version 2.0.
Data (CSV) · SVG · PNG
Latest values as a table
| Date | Kaub, daily mean | Lowest daily reading 2010–2020 (25 cm, 22 Oct 2018) |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-18 | 8.8 | 25 |
| 2026-10-19 | 12.9 | 25 |
| 2026-10-20 | 19.2 | 25 |
| 2026-10-21 | 15.1 | 25 |
| 2026-10-22 | 19.1 | 25 |
| 2026-10-23 | 27.3 | 25 |
What it is not. It is not a recovery. The gauge is still 51 cm short of the 77 cm reference at which the shipping channel depth is guaranteed, the equivalent water level GlW, with a mean water level of 208 cm4. One day above a line is a data point, not a trend.
The constructive reading. Both stories run on public measurement. Enedis counts homes off the grid by region; Météo-France publishes gusts by station; the federal waterways office publishes the Rhine every fifteen minutes, free to use1,2. Repair crews, barge operators and insurers plan on exactly these numbers. A storm is frightening. A storm that is measured is a job list.
What to watch
A storm sends its bill at once. A drought sends it in instalments. Both get paid.
Sources
- Tempête Austen : 288 600 foyers privés d'électricité, perturbations dans les aéroports et sur les rails... Le point sur les intempéries en milieu d'après-midi — franceinfo, 23 Oct 2026, updated 16:12.
- PEGELONLINE REST API: Kaub (Rhein), water level W, 15-minute raw values for the last 32 days — Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsverwaltung des Bundes (WSV), retrieved 23 Oct 2026, 16:30 CEST.
- PEGELONLINE REST API: Kaub station, current values (W, Q) — WSV, retrieved 23 Oct 2026, 16:30 CEST.
- PEGELONLINE REST API: Kaub station, characteristic values (NW, MW, GlW) — WSV, retrieved 23 Oct 2026, 16:35 CEST.
Every figure in this piece traces to a source above or to the desk’s own arithmetic on those sources, marked as such. Quotations are short and attributed. Spot an error? Write to the desk; corrections are logged on the method page.
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