At the turn of the year 1882/83, the "New Year's Hole", which is also used today as a bathing area, was created by a dam breach that led to the flooding of the hinterland. Officially, however, the New Year's Hole is a private fishing lake.
Today's appearance hardly gives an idea of the dramatic events that led to its creation. The Rhine, which was already unusually high due to persistent precipitation in the late summer and autumn of 1882, reached 822 cm at the Worms gauge on December 29, its highest level since the introduction of regular measurements at the end of the 18th century to this day. For comparison: the mean water level at the Worms gauge is 221 cm, the highest flood in recent decades
At 729 cm, spring 1988 was still almost a meter below the 1882 mark. At the turn of the year 1882/83, the water was already on the crest of the then lower and not as wide dam as it is today, where it was initially held by additional earth could become. But in the morning hours of January 1, 1883, nothing helped, the main dam broke at the point in front of you over a length of 115 m. The Rhine water flowing through the opening flushed a 19-22 m deep and at that time up to 190 m wide whirlpool hole , a so-called scour. The amounts of earth, sand and gravel pressed out of this scour were spread over the adjacent areas, covering 100 acres of land (approx. 25 hectares) with up to half a meter thick alluvial material.
If you walk through the reed landscape with your eyes wide open, you will come across such whirlpool holes again and again, e.g. 400 m further east the Bruderlöcher (which you will get to know further along the path) or 1.1 km further north the Geilsbruderloch. The youngest scours can be found on the Kühkopf, where in the spring of 1983 the summer dykes were breached in three places by floods.