Europe battling severe flooding amid Storm Boris

Extreme weather is sweeping across Europe with catastrophic flooding caused by Storm Boris.

Flooded regions along the Polish-Czech border are visible in this multi-temporal image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission between 3 and 15 September 2024. The comparison uses an image from 3 September (before the floods) and one from 15 September (after the floods) over the border between Czechia and Poland.

The red areas highlight the regions impacted by flooding following heavy rainfall from Storm Boris.

In response to the floods, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service has been activated to produce detailed maps of the affected areas across several countries, including Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Austria, Germany and Italy.

Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission carries a radar instrument to ‘see’ through clouds and rain, making it particularly useful for monitoring floods.