← Back
0.28

Bull Gill

Ellen
Derwent West Cumbria and Duddon catchment • Allerby • Cumberland • ID: 754016 • Level
(30m ago) • 2 readings/hr • 97 views

Set water level alerts

Get notified about Bull Gill — tick as many as you like, they all share the notify settings below.

Unusual rise FloodRadar+Top 1% rise rate for this gauge.
Drag the line on the chart, or type a value: m
Quick pick:

Each one is saved as its own alert — pause or remove them individually any time.

Not an emergency service — if in danger call 999. Alerts rely on EA/SEPA data and are best-efforts. Terms

Current Level
0.278 m
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.292 m
24h Min
0.278 m
Typical Range
0.24 - 1.50
m
Highest Recorded
2.51 m
EA official record
2.48 in our data (since Jan 1976)
Current level is 11% of this
🚽 Sewage overflows nearby

Recent Water Levels

🌍 floodradar.co.uk
1 day

Recent Readings

Falling · -0.6 cm over 10h
23 Aug 23:00 ▬ steady 0.278 m
23 Aug 22:45 ▬ steady 0.278 m
23 Aug 21:30 ▬ steady 0.278 m
23 Aug 21:15 ▬ steady 0.278 m
23 Aug 21:00 ▬ steady 0.278 m
23 Aug 20:45 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.278 m
23 Aug 20:30 ▬ steady 0.279 m
23 Aug 20:15 ▬ steady 0.279 m
23 Aug 20:00 ▬ steady 0.279 m
23 Aug 19:45 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.279 m
23 Aug 19:30 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.280 m
23 Aug 18:15 ▬ steady 0.281 m
23 Aug 18:00 ▬ steady 0.281 m
23 Aug 17:45 ▬ steady 0.281 m
23 Aug 17:30 ▼ -0.3 cm 0.281 m
23 Aug 14:30 ▬ steady 0.284 m
23 Aug 14:15 ▬ steady 0.284 m
23 Aug 14:00 ▬ steady 0.284 m
23 Aug 13:45 ▬ steady 0.284 m
23 Aug 13:30 0.284 m

Rainfall & Weather

Loading rainfall and weather data...

Flood history near this gauge

Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2006 for the 12 flood areas linked to this gauge (nearest 5.1 km away).

5severe warnings 37flood warnings 158flood alerts

Most recent flood warning: 14 Dec 2025Rivers Cocker and Derwent at Cockermouth, Cricket Ground, Trout Hotel Car Park, Hatters Croft

Year by year
YearSevereWarningsAlerts
2026 0 0 1
2025 0 3 3
2024 0 3 10
2023 0 2 11
2022 0 2 8
2021 0 3 4
2020 0 1 20
2019 0 0 5
2018 0 1 9
2017 0 0 5
2016 0 0 8
2015 5 9 14
2014 0 11 13
2013 0 1 5
2012 0 1 4
2011 0 0 9
2010 0 0 4
2009 0 0 2
2008 0 0 11
2007 0 0 5
2006 0 0 7

Warnings apply to a whole flood area, not necessarily this exact spot. Years before 2006 aren't covered by the EA's historic record. See also the Allerby flood history.

Nearby Stations

Loading nearby stations...

Station Details

  • Monitoring Station: Bull Gill
  • Watercourse: River Ellen
  • Nearest Town: Allerby
  • County: Cumberland
  • Coordinates: 54°43'57"N 3°24'19"W (54.732405, -3.405386)
  • Open in: Google Maps · Apple Maps (opens your maps app)
  • Date Opened: 1 Jan 1975
  • Status: Active
  • Station Type: River level station
  • Station Reference: 754016
  • EA Gauge ID: 754016-level-stage-i-15_min-m
  • Parameter: Level
  • Unit: m
  • Typical rise rate: 1 cm/hr (p95 sustained over 90 days)
  • Typical data delay: ~22 min (measured reading→publication lag)
  • Tidal: No
  • Lock / structure: No
  • Catchment Area: Derwent West Cumbria and Duddon
  • Typical Range: 0.240 – 1.500 m
  • Drainage Area: 96 km² upstream of this gauge
  • Flow Data: Available (m³/s) via EA Hydrology
  • EA Cross-check: 0.28 m (EA at 23 Aug 22:45)
  • Flow Archive: National River Flow Archive ↗

Geographic coordinates may reflect the access point for the gauge, and not the precise location in the watercourse that it is taking readings from.

Catchment Character

🌊 Fairly flashy Responds fairly quickly to rain, with moderate baseflow between events.

Your catchment is all the land that drains rainfall into the river above this gauge. Its character — how steep, wet, wooded, urban or chalky that land is — decides how fast rain here turns into a rising river. A steep, bare or clay catchment is “flashy” (rises and falls quickly, floods easily); a flat, chalk or well-wooded one is slow and steady. The tiles below put numbers to that; the flow-duration curve reads left-to-right from the river’s typical high flows (Q5) down to its low flows (Q95) — a steep curve means a flashy river.

The physical character of the land that drains to this gauge, and how it shapes its flood response — from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).

Baseflow Index
0.49
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
1,254 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +9% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
0.6%
largely rural
Median Annual Flood
35.10 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Recorded Flow
46.80 m³/s
5 Dec 2015
Flow-Duration Curve
mean 2.467.681.440.3105% (high)% of days exceeded95% (low)
Daily flow (m³/s) exceeded each % of the time — a steep curve is flashy, a flat one is steady. Q5 high · Q50 median · Q95 low.
Land Cover (2023)
Woodland 3%Grassland 83%Arable 11%Urban 2%

Flow affected by: public water supply, groundwater abstraction.

Photos

Gauging-station photographs from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).

Photos © NRFA / UKCEH & the measuring authority — shown at web resolution. Full gallery on the NRFA ↗

About this gauge

Flat V weir gauging catchment with steep headwaters in the Uldale Fells. Some abstractions and effluents with limited impact on runoff.

More detail

The catchment

Steep headwaters drain Uldale Fells and flow westward. Lower reaches follow the E-W trend of the Coal Measures with Carboniferous Limestone to the south. Extensively overlain by Boulder Clay with alluvium within the main river valley. No catchment changes known.

The station

Flat V weir (1:20 side slopes) 11m wide installed in 1975. Right bank 1.77 m high, left bank 1.67m high.

How it measures flow

Full range covered with stable rating; drowns above 0.63m. Some bypassing below road bridge, cutting off bend on left bank. Suffers from slight accretion. It has been suggested that reductions in channel maintenance in recent years have increased water levels. Permanent cableway, and gauged above banktop (though only inbank). The photos include one taken during gaugings in the November 2009 event, with significant water on both floodplains. One rating applied across period of record - re-rated to take account of floodplain flow (Peak Flows v12). Station rated by current meter to 1.92 m, though out-of-bank flows are not included. Some scatter in the gaugings.

Flow regime

Chapel House reservoir near the top of the catchment along with several groundwater abstractions and discharges of sewage and industrial effluent impact the flow regime somewhat however the impact is fairly small. Flashy runoff regime.

The flow record

Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in August 2021 (WINFAP Files v10) and in September 2023 (WINFAP Files v12). Flows at end Sept 2023 missing due to dropout.

Descriptions from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH). NRFA station record ↗

Gauge Details

How this gauging station is built and how long it has measured (NRFA / UKCEH).

Gauge type
Flat-V weir
Operating since
1975
Station datum
26.6 mAOD
Flow record
1976–2024 · 48 yrs · 99% complete
Peak-flow record
since 1975
Hydrometric area
75
Measured by
Environment Agency

Frequently asked questions

Is the River Ellen at Bull Gill flooding today?

The current level is 0.28m, which is within the typical range of 0.24 to 1.50m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.

Is the river level rising or falling at Bull Gill?

Based on the most recent readings, the level is currently steady. The chart above shows the last 7 days of measurements, updated roughly every 15 minutes.

What is a normal level for the River Ellen at Bull Gill?

The typical range at this station is 0.24m to 1.50m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 1.50m are higher than usually seen and may indicate a flood risk.

How often is this river level data updated?

Readings are taken by the Environment Agency gauge roughly every 15 minutes and FloodRadar refreshes its data continuously, so the level shown is normally less than an hour old.

Embed this gauge on your website

Free live river-level widget — ideal for parish councils, angling clubs and local sites. Updates automatically.

Preview

📮 Flood risk by postcode near this gauge

Postcodes within 5 km with properties in the Environment Agency’s rivers-and-sea flood-risk bands:

Check any UK postcode’s flood risk →

🏠 Buying or renting around here? Get the Property Flood-Risk Report for any English postcode — official risk band, floods since 1946, warning history, river behaviour and nearby storm overflows. £19 one-off. Learn more →