The live Mosel gauge placed on a flood-mark ladder — which Cochem streets and landmarks go under at each reading, the official reporting level, and the great historic floods.
Town Tools builds free, public tools for Cochem and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.
How high is the Mosel at Cochem right now — and what does that level mean for the town? This page reads the official federal gauge live and places today's reading on a ladder of documented marks: which streets and landmarks go under at each level, the official reporting level, and the marks of the great floods. It is not a forecast.
Right now
Mosel · 2.14 m
The river is below the first flood mark on this page.
Updated .
Read this before the numbers
Drag to any gauge reading to see which places flood at it.
At 2.14 m, the river is below the first flood mark on this list.
The official flood warning is at Hochwassermeldedienst Rheinland-Pfalz
The Rhineland-Palatinate flood-warning centre issues the official level, the 24-hour forecast and civil-protection advice for the Pegel Cochem. This page only explains what a reading means — the warning itself is made there. Check it whenever the river is rising.
Documented reference points, lowest reading first.
The service’s own thresholds, lowest first.
How high past floods reached at this gauge.
“Meine Pegel” & KATWARNFree warning apps named in Cochem's flood plan — they push the gauge level and official flood and danger alerts to your phone.
The federal waterways authority publishes navigation marks — Marke I at 450 cm (ships slow down) and Marke II at 500 cm (the Mosel closes to traffic). Those govern boats, not civil protection. The town's official flood-reporting level (Meldehöhe) is 600 cm, set by the Hochwassermeldedienst Rheinland-Pfalz.
Long before the Mosel tops its banks, groundwater (Drängwasser) pushes up from below into cellars and low-lying lanes. That is why the first cellars in Cochem take water at about 508 cm — just above the level where the river closes to shipping.
The level-to-street figures are from the City of Cochem's 2020 flood plan (Alarm- und Einsatzplan Hochwasser). They are documented reference points for where water reaches at a given Cochem gauge reading — not a forecast and not a guarantee for any single address. The plan is a few years old and some thresholds have shifted over time; the authoritative call for your home is always the warning service above.
The Pegel Cochem has recorded the Mosel continuously since 1817. Its all-time high was 10.34 m on 22 December 1993, followed thirteen months later by 9.47 m on 27 January 1995 — the back-to-back floods that put the old town under water.
Checked 28 Jun, 12:33. River data from PEGELONLINE (WSV — Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsverwaltung des Bundes), under Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0. Readings are raw (Rohdaten) and may be revised.
Source: City of Cochem 2020 flood plan (Alarm- und Einsatzplan Hochwasser); levels via Hochwassermeldedienst RLP and WSV/PEGELONLINE, checked 28 June 2026 (today).