Spring Rasputitsa 1941

Does anyone have the start and end dates for the SPRING Rasputitsa of 1941? The unusually late and long one that caused the River Bug to burst its banks, and contributed to BARBAROSSA being delayed for a month?

 

Whilst it isnt directly answering your question Phylo, some of the references might help in your quest: http://www.seaclimate.com/3/pdf/3_22.pdf

 

Ger, I think this paper walks on thin ice...

 

It does, but it has references that may help in finding out when the raputiza started in 1941. I am not a proponent of the article! But you are right, it does skate on thin ice!

 

I could have done a better effort at mixing metaphors

Now seriously, a good look at histories would reveal such dates, and I say histories because the front was very extended N-S and weather events were not simultaneous along the front. We'd need to look at memoirs or histories from AGs North, Centre and South and pick whatever weather details we could identify. That is, thaw used to come earlier to Odessa than to Leningrad

 

I could have done a better effort at mixing metaphors

Now seriously, a good look at histories would reveal such dates, and I say histories because the front was very extended N-S and weather events were not simultaneous along the front. We'd need to look at memoirs or histories from AGs North, Centre and South and pick whatever weather details we could identify. That is, thaw used to come earlier to Odessa than to Leningrad
Za, would the Army Groups have recorded this information, ie the weather in Jan-May 1941? I would say its very difficult to get this info to be honest, I doubt whether (pardon the pun) any western Agency would have this data, and as for the Soviet Archives well t hats anyones guess as to its availability.

 

The 'Weather-War' was/is one of the interesting sub-topics of WWII - the Germans had weather teams deployed to Greenland (4 weather Stations), as well as positioning research vessels in the far North.

The final German unit to surrender in WWII was on the 4 September 1945 when a German team on a remote park of Spitzbergen surrendered to a Norwegian Naval vessel.

The Americans had weather teams deployed in the Gobi Desert - a movie was made of this called Destination Gobi staring Richard Widmark.

 

Phylo have you thought of asking the Geographic Society if they hold any data?

 

Ger, I'm sure you'd find something on that regard at least in Guderian and v.Manstein's memoirs, I remember comments on dry ground, I can look them up later, as well as in those Halder diaries. Dismissing of course proper archival data to which I don't have access.

 

Phylo, try to find "Hitler's Balkan campaign and the invasion of the USSR" or "Greek-Soviet relations, 1917-1941" both written by Anrew Zapantis.

At Wlodawa (a town circa 60 kilometers south of Brest on the Soviet-Polish border), following the March 3 thaw of the ice, the level of the water of the Bug rose and it was high on March 5. After this, by April 2 the water level dropped considerably; however, on April 23 it began to rise again and attained a very high level on May 5 after which the river's water level began to decrease gradually. The monthly maximum levels (not the monthly mean levels however) were flood levels, but nbot very unusual ones because such floods occur in that area evera four or five years; the damage, if any, was probably not very serious.

At Frankopol (situated north of the city of Sokolow Podlaski which is some 75 kilometers northeast of Warsaw and about 100 kilometers west of Brest) high water levels occurred in March, April and May; and the monthly maximum levels in March and then in the beginning of May (the maximum value was reached on May 7) were flood levels.

Since the thaw began on March 3 and the rainfall in the areas of Warsaw, Wyszkow, Koden (only approximately 36 kilometers from Wlodawa) and Zamosc-Mokre was not heavy the question was asked as to what may have caused the high water levels at Wlodawa and Frankopol. In response the Instytut stated that (regarding Wlodawa and Frankopol) rainfall data for the period in question practically do not exist; one may guess that the rain in the tributary areas must have been sufficient enough to cause such high spring water levels.

It thus appears that the statement made by Guderian that there were floods in the beginning of May seems to be fairly accurate at least on the basis of evidence at Wlodawa. The claim that the floods lasted until June 1941 does not seem to be accurate on the basis of the data quoted.

And yet, in his Diary, Halder does not make any reference to floods, swollen rivers, or the Bug in particular. On June 9, he visited by air the front: "Warsaw (von Hobe), Biala, Brest-Litovsk and Tilsit", but made no remarks about floods at the Bug on the bank of which Brest-Litovsk lies.

 

Ger, I'm sure you'd find something on that regard at least in Guderian and v.Manstein's memoirs, I remember comments on dry ground, I can look them up later, as well as in those Halder diaries. Dismissing of course proper archival data to which I don't have access.
I'll ook up Panzer Leader if I can later, Za. Good call.

 

Whilst it isnt directly answering your question Phylo, some of the references might help in your quest: http://www.seaclimate.com/3/pdf/3_22.pdf
Well,as Phylo knows,I have the greatests objections to Seaclimate .

 

Well,as Phylo knows,I have the greatests objections to Seaclimate .
I can honestly tell you I wasnt trying to endorse it LJ, if its not relevant I can most certainly take it out of my post.

 

No problem,but,I had the "chance" to read the following in seaclimate (on P 5) in connection with a discussion on AHF on the winter of 1941-1942.
1)This investigation also was not able to find and present data from the Baltic Countries.
My translation:we have no proofs for the following
2)This region (=Baltic Countries) as well as Western Russia experienced a winter 1941-1942 not seen in many decades, and possibly in more than a century .
My comments:what is many? 2,3,?
:possibly should not be used in a scientific paper,because it also can be possibly not
3)Fortunately,to prove the argument of the thesis"climate change by war at sea" any in depth knowledge of the situation east of the Baltic Sea is not needed.The knowledge that it was killing cold and the weather conditions with climatic records were out of tune is sufficient enough .
My comments:to say in a scientific paper that in depth knowledge for the argument of a thesis is not needed,because we have knowledge (how?) of what was happening,makes me stiffen of unbelief.
You will understand that I have the greatest objections .

 

All, thanks for the above so far!

Sol, that's very interesting stuff - the floods may not have been there by the time the Wehrmacht arrived - but very interesting that there were SEVERAL floods during the Spring period that year!

I came across the climate change by sea warfare idea before about 18 months ago - and strangely enough there's a LOT written on the subject! There definitely seem to be a lot of protagonists and antagonists on that particular debate :mellow:

The article DOES however contain a lot of pertinent information - I first read it a while back when looking for information on the late Spring Thaw in Norway in 1940 and why it happened...that's where I came across the strange climate events of 1940-43 first.

 

P.S I'm also interested in the weather events at the end of 1941 - does anyone have a copy of von Bock's war diary? I'd like to check out the claim that he recorded a -29 degree celsius temperature in the entry for November 5th, 1941...

 

Maybe,you could ask Andy W.on the WWII Forum,but I don't know if he is still posting there(hist post about the von Bock Diaries dated from 13 december 2002)

 

x

 

There you go, injecting hard data on a discussion that was supposed to be just waffle

Speaking of which, I didn't have much time last night but did check Manstein's Lost Battles anyway and he doesn't say a word about any Barbarossa delay, but if you want a lectrue on political exculpation old Erich truly excels

I also checked Halder but didn't get to the proper dates in the diaries, I went up to mid-May only but strangely 5-6 weeks before the grand event there is little mention of it. By that time the Diaries are engrossed with the events on Yugoslavia and Greece, only some scant mention on passing on Barbarossa. I'll see if I can be more precise