Upper Lee catchment
• Upper Lee • Central Bedfordshire • ID: 4641TH • Level
(23m ago) • 4 readings/hr • 156 views
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⤴Unusual rise — FloodRadar+Top 1% rise rate for this gauge.
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You'll be notified when this gauge is rising more than 0.10 m/hr — a sign of rapidly increasing water levels.
You'll be notified when a new storm-overflow (sewage) discharge starts within ~3 km of this gauge, based on the water companies' near-real-time feeds.
Get notified when recent rainfall near this gauge crosses its learnt rise trigger — an early "watch"
signal, typically hours before a rise. Experimental; not an official flood warning.
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Current Level
1.090 mASD
▬ Steady
24h Max
1.091 mASD
24h Min
1.085 mASD
Typical Range
1.07 - 1.70
mASD
Highest Recorded
2.77 mASD
EA official record
2.77 in our data (since Apr 2009)
Current level is 39% of this
🚽Sewage overflows nearby
Recent Water Levels
🌍 floodradar.co.uk
1 day
EA forecast (official)
Prediction V2
Prediction Eris
Nimbus beta
Experimental model fusing soil moisture, river flow, groundwater and catchment
character. The shaded band is its 10–90% range, widened so that about 80% of recent outcomes fall inside it.
Under evaluation — not yet promoted, so treat as a second opinion.
River Flow
90 days
Daily mean discharge (m³/s) with the daily min–max band, from the EA Hydrology API. Flow is the volume of water passing the gauge — often a more direct flood signal than level.
Flow Data: Daily mean flow (m³/s) to 8 Oct (2 days behind — the EA publishes each day's mean a day or two after it ends; unchecked, provisional)via EA Hydrology
Storm overflows whose water reaches this gauge on the mapped river network, nearest first by distance along the river. The status is each water company's monitor: it says whether an overflow is discharging, not how much or what it contains.
19 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 2.2 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 15 report not discharging, and for 4 the monitor is offline or has not reported, so their status is not known.
Thames Water · into River Ver · 5.3 km away in a straight line · its watercourse is not on the river map
155 spills · 3,531 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
2 other overflows within 6 km are downstream of this gauge or on another branch of the river network, so they are not listed.
These are the water companies' monitor statuses; a spill does not by itself explain a change in the gauge level. River connections and distances are traced on OS Open Rivers (edition 2026-04), which leaves out many small channels. Explore the sewage map →
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 Upper Lee flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 8 areas linked to this gauge, nearest first.
🌊 Urban & flashyHeavily built-up — rain runs off hard surfaces fast, so levels can spike within hours of heavy rain.
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
0.87
groundwater-fed — slow & steady
Avg Annual Rainfall
682 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +4% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
33%
heavily urbanised
Highest Daily Mean Flow
9.07 m³/s
22 Sep 2024 · daily mean, not the instantaneous peak
Flow-Duration Curve
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.
The station is a replacement of the former upstream gauging station, the Upper Lee at Luton Hoo (38013).
More detail
The catchment
A Chalk catchment (with Drift) that is heavily urbanised.
The station
The station is a replacement of the d/s gauging station, the Upper Lee at Luton Hoo (38013). It is a rated section located 400m d/s of the old structure.
How it measures flow
Rated section (using a control section) within an existing channel.
Flow regime
The station is located downstream of the outfall from an ornamental lake (with storage capacity) at Luton Hoo Park. It is also located above a significant discharge from a sewage treatment works. Flows are substantially reduced as a result of groundwater abstractions. The catchment has substantial amounts of urbanisation resulting in rapid run-off and a flashy response. Flow occassionally affected by operation of upstream penstock which is used by the Luton Hoo estate when carrying out maintenance on their ornanmental weir.
The flow record
Insensitive at very low flows. Significant periods of near zero flow.
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Lee at Luton East Hyde flooding today?
The current level is 1.09m, which is within the typical range of 1.07 to 1.70m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Luton East Hyde?
Based on the most recent readings, the level is currently steady. The chart above shows the last 12 hours of measurements by default (up to 7 days), updated roughly every 15 minutes.
What is a normal level for the River Lee at Luton East Hyde?
The typical range at this station is 1.07m to 1.70m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 1.70m are higher than usually seen and may indicate a flood risk.
How often is this river level data updated?
Readings are supplied by the Environment Agency gauge. FloodRadar checks for updates roughly every 15 minutes; the timestamp above shows how recent the latest available reading is.
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📮 Flood risk by postcode near this gauge
Postcodes within 5 km with properties in the Environment Agency’s rivers-and-sea flood-risk bands:
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