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Live levels from 3 monitoring stations across Staffordshire, updated every 15 minutes.
| Station | Level now | Status | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great Bridgford | 0.22 mASD 1h ago | Low | ||
| 7.3 km by river | ||||
| Broadeye Bridge | 0.34 mASD 1h ago | Normal | ||
| 7.2 km by river | ||||
| Milford | 0.48 mASD 1h ago | Normal | ||
Stations are listed from source to mouth as the water flows, traced on the river map (OS Open Rivers) and the Environment Agency’s own links between its gauges. A distance “by river” is along the river, and is shown only where the map traces the path.
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2026.
Streams and rivers with a gauge whose water joins the Sow above one of its gauges, from the source down. Named streams without a gauge that have a page here are listed at the end.
Joins the Sow above Great Bridgford, its highest gauge, no more than 3.4 km by river above Great Bridgford.
| Shallowford | 0.15 mASD 1h ago | Low |
Its water passes every gauge on the Sow, from Great Bridgford down.
Joins the Sow between Broadeye Bridge and Milford, no more than 14.8 km by river above Milford.
| Coven | 0.52 mASD 1h ago | Normal |
| 10.8 km by river | ||
| Penkridgestructure | 0.27 mASD 1h ago | Normal |
Its water passes Milford and every gauge below it on the Sow. It does not pass Broadeye Bridge or the gauges above it.
Joins the Sow between Broadeye Bridge and Milford, no more than 7.7 km by river above Milford.
| Astonfields | 0.22 mASD 1h ago | Normal |
Its water passes Milford and every gauge below it on the Sow. It does not pass Broadeye Bridge or the gauges above it.
Below Milford, its water next reaches Kings Bromley, a gauge on River Trent, 22.0 km by river downstream.
Tributaries and where they join are traced on the river map (OS Open Rivers, edition 2026-04) and the Environment Agency’s links between its gauges. The map holds distances between gauges, not the junctions themselves, so a junction is placed between two gauges, and no further up than the tributary’s own lowest gauge. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2026.
19 storm overflows are traced upstream of Milford, the Sow’s lowest gauge on the river map: on the Sow itself, on its gauged tributaries, and on smaller streams that join above there.
Official figures for 2025, for the overflows traced upstream of Milford: 212 spills over 1,157 hours in total, across all 19.
Each overflow is listed in the stretch above the first gauge its water reaches, from the source down, as on the Gauges tab. A stretch of the Sow includes the smaller streams that join it there.
Within 3 km of one of the Sow’s gauges in a straight line, but the river map cannot say whether their water reaches it.
1 other overflow within 3 km of these gauges is placed below the Sow’s lowest gauge or on another river, so not listed.
A status is the water company’s own monitor: it says whether an overflow is discharging, never how much or why, and a spill does not by itself explain a change in a river level. A status older than two hours is shown as unknown. Annual figures are the official returns: 12/24-hour spills for England and Wales, overflow events for Scotland (Scottish Water counts differently, so the two cannot be compared). “No data” means the monitor produced no usable data that year, not zero. Overflows are placed on OS Open Rivers (edition 2026-04), which leaves out many small channels: an overflow the map cannot place may still drain here. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2026. Sewage in Britain’s rivers →
Live status: © Severn Trent Water storm overflow activity data, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Annual figures for England: Environment Agency Event Duration Monitoring return, © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right, Open Government Licence v3.0.
Dated samples taken by the Environment Agency, not live readings. Results are published days to months after the sample is taken, and many points are sampled only a few times a year, or have not been sampled for years.
51 sampling points on the River Sow and the streams that join it above Milford. 17 have a sample from the last 12 months; 24 have any sample banked.
Sampled most recently, anywhere on the Sow and its streams:
| Where, from the source down | Sampling points | Newest sample |
|---|---|---|
| River Penk and its streamsjoins the Sow above Milford | 22 points9 sampled | 1 Sep 2026 |
| Above ShallowfordMeece Brook · joins the Sow above Great Bridgford | 4 points | 24 Jul 2026 |
| Above Great Bridgford | 11 points4 sampled | 15 Apr 2025 |
| Above AstonfieldsSandyford Brook · joins the Sow above Milford | 1 point0 sampled | none banked |
| Above Broadeye Bridge | 5 points4 sampled | 17 Sep 2026 |
| Above Milford | 8 points3 sampled | 14 Sep 2026 |
England's samples only. Each count opens the list of those points, nearest first, with the date of each one’s latest sample (the gauge’s “Upstream of here” list).
FloodRadar does not grade these results: there is no overall score, and official river classifications are a separate dataset. A sample taken downstream of an overflow does not by itself show where anything in it came from. River connections and distances are traced on OS Open Rivers (edition 2026-04), which leaves out many small channels.
Water samples: Environment Agency Water Quality Archive, © Environment Agency and/or database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2026.
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