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31,672 flood outlines the Environment Agency mapped after real floods in England, 1703 to 28 Jan 2026. Search a place, or watch centuries of written accounts and mapped outlines appear together.
The place check covers mapped outlines in England. Wales and Scotland keep their own records; written accounts across Britain appear as soft purple marks and in History here.
Drawing the historical record…
— written accounts up to 2026
Loading dated accounts with verified places…
The record plays once; drag the year to explore it, click a dot to open that place on the map.
Outlines show mapped water; purple marks locate written accounts. Each shape is where the Environment Agency mapped water during a past flood in England. A soft mark locates one verified named place from an account, not the flood's extent. Several accounts and outlines may describe the same flood.
No mark does not mean a place has never flooded. The record is incomplete and uneven. Live flood alerts are tracked separately, and this page says nothing about the future. Wales and Scotland keep their own records of mapped extents, held by Natural Resources Wales and SEPA.
The map opens on the whole of England, drawn from the same grid as the picture above. Zoom in and the shapes themselves appear: the biggest in view first, up to 80 at a time. Click a shape for its record.
Mapped outlines Written accounts
Select a period or drag the year handles.
Loading accounts in this view…
Follows the map and year filters. Places named in an account do not show how far the water reached. Water-source chips filter the mapped outlines only.
The paid Property Report checks the exact building against every recorded outline, flood zone, defence and warning, not just the postcode.
Residents' reports fill the gaps the survey left.
Two ways to count the same archive. An outline is one mapped shape; the Environment Agency often splits one flood into dozens. An occasion is a distinct record by name and date. Flip between them and watch some years collapse.
Hover or tap a year; arrow keys walk the years. Choose one to show only that year on the map.
The shaded band is the digital era: from about 2000 the Environment Agency digitised outlines systematically, so the taller recent bars are partly better record-keeping. This chart cannot say whether flooding is getting worse.
About 41 % of the outlines with a real date began in December or January; July's bump is mostly one fortnight, the summer of 2007. 6,913 records carry only a year, not a month, and are left out here. Tap a month to show only those records on the map.
The calendar months with the most recorded outlines, and the floods history remembers them by. Storm names are a date match, not a cause. Deaths, homes and costs come from the curated Major Floods page, not from the outlines.
National Floods 1947. After one of the coldest winters on record, a rapid thaw combined with heavy rain caused catastrophic flooding across England and Wales. 100,000+ properties affected.
Great Flood of September 1968. Intense thunderstorms deposited over 100mm of rain in just a few hours across south-east England. 8 deaths, Thousands properties affected.
Most of the records are in Hampshire, North Yorkshire and Darlington.
Autumn 2000 Floods. The wettest autumn since records began brought prolonged flooding to England and Wales. 2 deaths, 10,000+ properties affected, £1.0 billion.
Autumn 2000 Floods. The wettest autumn since records began brought prolonged flooding to England and Wales. 2 deaths, 10,000+ properties affected, £1.0 billion.
Autumn 2000 Floods. The wettest autumn since records began brought prolonged flooding to England and Wales. 2 deaths, 10,000+ properties affected, £1.0 billion.
Most of the records are in Surrey, Oxfordshire and Hampshire.
Carlisle Floods 2005. Exceptional rainfall caused all three rivers running through Carlisle to reach record levels simultaneously. 3 deaths, 3,000+ properties affected, £400 million.
Summer 2007 Floods. The wettest May-July since records began in 1766 caused the most expensive inland flood event in UK history. 13 deaths, 55,000+ properties affected, £3.2 billion. Also that month: Toll Bar Floods 2007.
Summer 2007 Floods. The wettest May-July since records began in 1766 caused the most expensive inland flood event in UK history. 13 deaths, 55,000+ properties affected, £3.2 billion. Also that month: Tewkesbury Floods 2007.
Cockermouth/Cumbria Floods 2009. A record-breaking 316.4mm of rain fell at Seathwaite in 24 hours — the highest ever recorded in England. 1 death, 1,300+ properties affected, £276 million.
Somerset Levels Flooding 2013-14. Persistent rainfall from December 2013 to February 2014 caused the Somerset Levels to flood extensively, with some areas remaining underwater for three months. 600+ properties affected.
Somerset Levels Flooding 2013-14. Persistent rainfall from December 2013 to February 2014 caused the Somerset Levels to flood extensively, with some areas remaining underwater for three months. 600+ properties affected. Also that month: Winter 2013-14 Thames Valley Floods.
Somerset Levels Flooding 2013-14. Persistent rainfall from December 2013 to February 2014 caused the Somerset Levels to flood extensively, with some areas remaining underwater for three months. 600+ properties affected. Also that month: Winter 2013-14 Thames Valley Floods.
Storm Desmond December 2015. Storm Desmond brought record-breaking rainfall to Cumbria, with 341.4mm falling at Honister Pass in 24 hours — a new UK record. 3 deaths, 16,000+ properties affected, £1.3 billion. Also that month: Storm Eva December 2015; York Floods December 2015; Todmorden/Hebden Bridge Floods 2015; Storm Frank December 2015.
Fishlake Floods November 2019. An entire month's rainfall fell in a single day across parts of Yorkshire. 1 death, 1,000+ properties affected.
Storm Ciara February 2020. Storm Ciara brought severe gales and heavy rainfall across the UK, with gusts exceeding 90mph. 3 deaths, Hundreds properties affected. Also that month: Storm Dennis February 2020.
Storm Christoph January 2021. Storm Christoph brought persistent heavy rainfall across northern England and Wales over three days, with over 100mm falling widely. Hundreds properties affected.
Storm Henk January 2024. Storm Henk brought intense rainfall to an already waterlogged England, triggering over 300 flood warnings — the highest number simultaneously active in years. 300+ warnings issued properties affected.
Storm Darragh December 2024. Storm Darragh brought severe gales and heavy rain to Wales and western England, with a rare red weather warning issued.
Older floods happened; these are the oldest anyone drew. Tap one to open it on the map.
The archive is published in arrears, so the most recent floods are the least complete. Tap one to open it on the map.
Outlines dated from the day before a storm to three days after it, counted from the Met Office naming era onwards; storms a few days apart share records. The same dates, not necessarily the cause. Tap a storm to show those years on the map; the arrow opens its page.
A county with many records is a county where many floods were surveyed, not necessarily the wettest. Oxfordshire's records were drawn patch by patch; a county with few is not a county with few floods.
Distinct records by name and date whose outline centre falls in the county.
Tap a segment to show only that source on the map. "Unknown" is the second-largest group: the archive often records that water was there without recording where it came from.
Most recorded outlines are a river simply exceeding its channel where there were no raised defences. Cause is not a map filter.
About 53 % of all outlines are smaller than a football pitch: a mark on the map is usually a street, not a town. The 63 over 25 km² are region-wide incident records, drawn as a boundary because only patches inside them flooded.
The Environment Agency's Recorded Flood Outlines for England: the mapped extent of floods that actually happened, published under the Open Government Licence and imported here quarterly. It is not a flood-risk map, not a prediction and not complete. Many floods were never mapped, and mapping effort has varied by decade and by region; many older records carry a whole-year date window, so durations are unreliable.
Community outlines are reported by members of the public and shown separately, dashed until verified. Wales's records are held by Natural Resources Wales and Scotland's by SEPA.
Contains Environment Agency data © Crown copyright and database right. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors and © Esri. Place names from OS Open Names.
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