More than 150 people have died and dozens were missing as severe flooding in Germany and Belgium turned streams and streets into raging torrents that swept away cars and caused houses to collapse ...

River floods such as those along the Ahr and Meuse valleys in 2021, the Central European floods of last September and the recent floods in Valencia, Spain, are caused by so-called cut-off lows.

While residents slept, the river breached its banks. On the evening of 14 July 2021, torrential rain in western Germany’s Ahr Valley caused a 45 km stretch of destruction. Buildings, vineyards ...