Rems and Winterbach · River, water, nature and history

Water in Winterbach – where it falls, where it flows and where it stays

Every raindrop that falls on the municipal area of Winterbach takes one of a few paths: it evaporates, seeps away, re-emerges as a spring, runs into a stream – and sooner or later ends up in the Rems. We surfers look at the gauge every day, because the wave lives on exactly this water. On this page we follow the drop from top to bottom. The evidence is on the linked pages.

1. At the top: rain on two slopes

Winterbach lies between two slopes that face each other: to the south the Schurwald, rising above 460 metres, to the north the Hungerberg at over 400 metres. Between them, at 238 metres, the Rems. What falls on these slopes flows towards the valley – not evenly, but bundled in ravines and stream valleys that the terrain model shows clearly. The same valleys are used by the cool air at night: where water drains, cold air drains too. Both follow the relief, and that is why the valleys matter twice over for Winterbach. → Cool air for Winterbach · → Wind and weather

2. In the slope: springs where sandstone lies on marl

Part of the rain seeps away and reappears: where in the Keuper a sandstone bed lies on impermeable marl, water emerges at the boundary. That is why the Schurwald slope is "rich in ever-flowing springs", why the Hungerberg had the Pfaffenbrunnen and the spring in the Höffenklinge, and why, according to the 1851 district description, Winterbach had "the best spring water in the Rems valley". Hillside water also emerges where no spring is tapped – in some places in the floodplain the ground is still damp today for this reason. → Springs and hillside water

3. The streams: seven ways to the Rems

Within the Winterbach municipal area seven streams reach the Rems. From the south, out of the Schurwald, come the Lehenbach (4.9 kilometres, catchment 7.1 square kilometres) – culverted beneath the village centre –, the Krebsbach with the Wattenbach, the Bücklensweilerbach and the Alsebach; from the north, off the Hungerberg, the Weilerbach and the Höffenklinge; on the boundary with Remshalden the Schweinbach. Many of them flow through the village in pipes for their last few hundred metres. In thunderstorms they can swell within minutes – that is the heavy-rain problem, which the Rems itself does not have. → Tributaries of the Rems

4. The Rems: 418 square kilometres arrive here

What falls above Winterbach – on the Eastern Swabian Jura (Ostalb), in the Welzheim Forest, in the Schurwald – the Rems collects. At the Schorndorf gauge, two kilometres above the Remswehr, it drains 418 square kilometres; the largest tributary is the Wieslauf with 77 square kilometres. On average 5.15 cubic metres per second flow past, on a typical day around 3, in a flood more than 100. For us these are the most important numbers of all: from them we calculate on how many days a year the wave could run and when it "pumps". We have analysed 95 years of gauge data for this. → River flow of the Rems · → The Rems in figures

Today: 0.63 m³/s (daily mean 24 Sep 2026) – very little water for late September (typical 1.68 m³/s). The Rems today →

5. Too much: floods and heavy rain

Floods come to Winterbach from two directions. From the Rems, when it rains for a long time across the whole catchment – then the gates beneath the Ostlandstraße bridge close, and the Schorndorf/Winterbach retention basin fills with up to 1.17 million cubic metres, as it did twice in June 2024. And from the slopes, when a thunderstorm breaks over the Schurwald – then the Lehenbach reservoir south of the village holds back up to 452,000 cubic metres, and the Water Board's heavy-rain hazard maps show where the water runs through the village. The gauge record shows something else: almost all the big Rems floods fall in the winter half-year, and usually the catchment was already wet beforehand. → Flood protection

6. Too little: low water and warm water

In late summer water becomes scarce. Then on many days less than one cubic metre per second flows at Schorndorf – in 2026, 76 days by the end of September –, the Rems gets warm – in June 2026 above 25 °C as a daily mean for the first time –, and fish such as the barbel come under stress. How much water still seeps out of the slopes weeks after a rain decides how low the Rems sinks in August. A landscape that holds water – forest, meadows, orchards, a damp floodplain – supports the river in the dry season. → Sponge landscape Winterbach · → The Rems is getting warmer · → Water quality of the Rems

7. The floodplain: where water is allowed to stay

Below the village the Rems has had room again since 2018: over a good kilometre it was restored, and in June 2024 the district office flooded exactly these areas to relieve the retention basin. The floodplain is the valley's natural store – in a flood it takes water in, in the dry season the floodplain soil releases it slowly, and in between beaver, kingfisher and barbel live on it. What the floodplain can do depends on how much of it stays open. → Restoration at Winterbach · → Wildlife and plants · → Winterbach grows

Two maps on water

Where there is water in Winterbach – streams, springs, lakes, ponds and retention basins – is shown on the water map:

Where it flows in heavy rain and floods – flow paths on the slopes, catchments with their watersheds and the flood areas from the 10-year to the extreme flood – is shown on the flood map. → Heavy rain in Winterbach

What this means for the Remswelle

The wave needs water that comes reliably – not too little in summer, not too much in winter. Both depend on the same landscape: on slopes that hold water, on streams that release it slowly, on a floodplain that leaves room for floods. Anyone who wants the wave has an interest in Winterbach handling its water well. → What does all this have to do with surfing? · → The site

Frequently asked questions

Where does the water of the Rems at Winterbach come from?

From a catchment of 418 square kilometres above the Schorndorf gauge: the Eastern Swabian Jura, the Welzheim Forest, the Schurwald. The largest tributary is the Wieslauf, which joins just before Schorndorf.

How many streams flow into the Rems at Winterbach?

Seven: Lehenbach, Krebsbach with Wattenbach, Bücklensweilerbach and Alsebach from the Schurwald, Weilerbach and Höffenklinge from the Hungerberg, and the Schweinbach on the boundary with Remshalden.

Do floods in Winterbach come from the Rems or from the streams?

From both. Rems floods arise from long rain across the whole catchment, mostly in the winter half-year; the streams swell within minutes during summer thunderstorms over the slopes.

What do valleys have to do with water and cold air?

Both follow the relief: rainwater drains through the ravines and stream valleys, and at night the cool air from the slopes flows along them into the village.

Sources

The evidence is on the linked pages: LUBW (Schorndorf gauge, flood hazard maps, data from the environmental information system), Rems Water Board (retention basins, heavy-rain hazard maps), district description of Schorndorf 1851, regional geography of Baden-Württemberg, terrain model DGM1 of the LGL-BW (Data licence Germany – attribution 2.0), Climate Atlas of the Stuttgart Region, Rems-Murr district office.

Last updated: 15 October 2026 · Initiative Remswelle