Rain radar live – precipitation, rain cells and heavy rain at a glance

Light, pale areas mean light precipitation – often drizzle or thin showers. Medium blue tones show moderate rain that wets roads and reduces visibility. Dark, saturated colors mark intense showers or thunderstorm rainfall with high mm/h values.

Watch shape and motion: narrow, elongated bands point to fronts or squall lines. Spot-like, isolated patches are typical showers or thunderstorm cells. If a patch stays over the same spot while the color grows darker, flood risk increases – even without an official warning.

Zoom to your surroundings. Regional radar composites in Central Europe are detailed enough to decide whether you can still dash to the shops or should wait.

Frontal rain is often widespread and long-lasting. It brings a lot of water over many hours – rivers rise, soils saturate. Showers are short and intense, sometimes with sun in between. Thunderstorm rain combines extreme intensity with short duration but can flood basements and underpasses in minutes.

On the map you recognize frontal rain by broad, connected areas with steady motion. Thunderstorm rain appears as highly intense islands, often alongside lightning activity on the thunderstorm radar. Showers sit in between: localized, mobile, hard to forecast.

It becomes critical when a lot of water falls in a short time or when rain keeps pouring over the same spot for long. Sealed cities do not drain water – underpasses, underground garages and subway stations are risk points. Slopes can trigger hillside runoff and debris flows, even kilometers from the actual rain center.

Alarm signals on the map: increasingly dark colors, slowed or stalled cell motion, simultaneous lightning activity. Add weather warnings – during orange or red act immediately, do not wait until water is visible.

Do not drive through standing water: 20 cm of current can sweep a car away, depth is often underestimated. Detours are cheaper than a total loss.

The timelapse of the last hour is the rain radar's strongest tool. You see whether a shower is heading toward you, passing by, or building up. Forecast buttons on the map show model-based development – useful for the next 1–3 hours, but with uncertainty.

Use the timelapse before you leave: take a rain jacket or postpone an appointment? A 60-second glance often saves more than five weather apps.

Before rain becomes visible, humidity often rises. When the dew point is close to air temperature, the air is saturated – fog, drizzle or showers become more likely. On muggy summer days with a high dew point, intense afternoon showers can form quickly.

Check humidity and dew point maps in the morning, rain and thunderstorm radar in the afternoon – that way you spot the pattern earlier than with a simple percentage in a weather app.

In winter widespread precipitation often dominates – snow or long-lasting rain on fronts. Spring and autumn bring changeable showers. Summer delivers localized thunderstorm showers with high local intensity. The map helps in every season, but interpretation differs: in winter endurance matters, in summer peak intensity.

During snowfall switch to the snow radar or snow depth map – rain layers may then show only the liquid fraction or model values in mixed form.