Upper and Bedford Ouse catchment
• Water Eaton • City of Milton Keynes • ID: E21505 • Level
(34m ago) • 4 readings/hr • 160 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.
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Current Level
0.234 mASD
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.243 mASD
24h Min
0.229 mASD
Typical Range
0.22 - 0.68
mASD
Highest Recorded
1.90 mASD
EA official record
1.89 in our data (since May 1978)
Current level is 12% 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 7 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.
7 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 10.8 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 7 report not discharging.
Anglian Water · into Tributary River Ouzel · 4.9 km away in a straight line · no mapped watercourse close enough to be sure
55 spills · 165 hours in 2025
Monitor offline: it cannot say whether it is discharging
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 →
In a typical year this gauge reaches its typical high of 0.68 m
on about 30 days.
This year so far: 19 days.
202619 days, 1 of them high · 1 highso far
202515 days, 3 of them high · 3 high
202456 days, 26 of them high · 26 high
202340 days, 5 of them high · 5 high
20229 days, 1 of them high · 1 highpatchy data
202130 days, 10 of them high · 10 highpatchy data
202047 days, 10 of them high · 10 high
201914 days, 2 of them high · 2 high
201811 days, 2 of them high · 2 highpatchy data
20176 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
Counted from each day's highest reading. Days with missing or implausible readings are left out, so a year marked patchy may have run high more often than shown.
The darker part is days above 1.26 m, the level this gauge tops only a few days a year.
Flood history near this gauge
Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2019 for the 7 flood
areas linked to this gauge (nearest 1.4 km away).
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 Water Eaton flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 7 areas linked to this gauge, nearest first.
🌊 Fairly flashyResponds 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
0.48
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
671 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +2% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
3.9%
partly urbanised
Median Annual Flood
25.70 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
36.92 m³/s
4 Oct 2020 · 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.
Constructed to measure flows just u/s of Milton Keys in a predominantly rural catchment with mixed geology, the station is located in a country park and is subject to vandalism.
More detail
The catchment
Mixed geology - predominantly Upper and Lower Greensand, with some Chalk and Oxford Clay. Predominantly rural with mixed farming, Leighton Buzzard within catchment.
The station
Flat V weir, 10m broad. Constructed to measure flows just u/s of urban development (Milton Keynes). In a country park and subject to vandalism.
How it measures flow
One rating applied across period of record. Floodplain flow accounted for, although not clear if accurate. Non modularity can occur as low as 0.8m, although rating only accounts for non-modularity at 1.3m.
Flow regime
Flows augmented by effluent from Leighton Buzzard. Small gw abstractions.
The flow record
Peak flows rejected after 2012, when gaugings deviate from rating. Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in September 2020 (WINFAP Files v9).
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Ouzel at Bletchley flooding today?
The current level is 0.23m, which is within the typical range of 0.22 to 0.68m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Bletchley?
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 Ouzel at Bletchley?
The typical range at this station is 0.22m to 0.68m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 0.68m 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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