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0.25

Restormel

Fowey
Seaton, Looe and Fowey catchment • Lostwithiel • Cornwall • ID: 49110 • Level
(34m ago) • 4 readings/hr • 149 views

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Current Level
0.250 m
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.264 m
24h Min
0.244 m
Typical Range
0.24 - 1.50
m
Highest Recorded
2.28 m
EA official record
2.28 in our data (since Apr 1961)
Current level is 11% of this
🚽 Sewage overflows nearby

Recent Water Levels

🌍 floodradar.co.uk
1 day

Recent Readings

Falling · -0.3 cm over 5h
10 Oct 13:00 ▼ -0.2 cm 0.250 m
10 Oct 12:45 ▼ -0.4 cm 0.252 m
10 Oct 12:30 ▼ -0.2 cm 0.256 m
10 Oct 12:15 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.258 m
10 Oct 12:00 ▲ +1 cm 0.259 m
10 Oct 11:45 ▼ -0.2 cm 0.248 m
10 Oct 11:30 ▼ -0.8 cm 0.250 m
10 Oct 11:15 ▲ +0.2 cm 0.258 m
10 Oct 11:00 ▼ -0.3 cm 0.256 m
10 Oct 10:45 ▲ +0.2 cm 0.259 m
10 Oct 10:30 ▲ +0.4 cm 0.257 m
10 Oct 10:15 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.253 m
10 Oct 10:00 ▼ -0.5 cm 0.254 m
10 Oct 09:45 ▼ -0.2 cm 0.259 m
10 Oct 09:30 ▲ +0.2 cm 0.261 m
10 Oct 09:15 ▲ +0.7 cm 0.259 m
10 Oct 09:00 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.252 m
10 Oct 08:45 ▬ steady 0.253 m
10 Oct 08:30 ▬ steady 0.253 m
10 Oct 08:15 0.253 m

Station Details

  • Monitoring Station: Restormel
  • Watercourse: River Fowey
  • Nearest Town: Lostwithiel
  • County: Cornwall
  • Nearest reservoir: Blackpool Pit (13.7 km) · 79.5% full (as of 31 May 2026)
  • Coordinates: 50°25'52"N 4°40'47"W (50.431183, -4.679630)
  • Open in: Google Maps · Apple Maps (opens your maps app)
  • Date Opened: 31 Mar 1961
  • Status: Active
  • Station Type: River level station
Technical details: references, datum, range, flow archive
  • Station Reference: 49110
  • Also at this site: RESTORMEL (E45746, flow, reporting)
  • RLOI id: 3152 (the EA's check-for-flooding station id)
  • EA Gauge ID: 49110-level-stage-i-15_min-m
  • Parameter: Level
  • Unit: m
  • Typical rise rate: 2 cm/hr (p95 sustained over 90 days)
  • Typical data delay: ~22 min (measured reading→publication lag)
  • Tidal: No
  • Lock / structure: No
  • Catchment Area: Seaton, Looe and Fowey
  • Typical Range: 0.240 – 1.500 m
  • Drainage Area: 169 km² upstream of this gauge
  • 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
  • EA Cross-check: 0.25 m (EA at 10 Oct 12:45)
  • 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.

Nearby Stations

Gauges connected to this river, and others nearby. A distance “by river” follows the river on the map; any other is in a straight line.

Connected upstream

Connected downstream

Distances by river: OS Open Rivers. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2026.

💧 Storm overflows upstream of this gauge

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.

3 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 14.8 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 3 report not discharging.

💧
South West Water · into St Neot River · 14.8 km upstream along the river
167 spills · 2,031 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
💧
South West Water · into River Loveny (S) · 15.3 km upstream along the river
82 spills · 1,489 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
💧
South West Water · into Trib Of River Fowey · 20.7 km upstream along the river
127 spills · 1,589 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last

Nearby, connection not known

Within 6 km in a straight line, but the river map cannot say whether their water passes this gauge.

💧
South West Water · into River Fowey (Estuarine) · 3.1 km away in a straight line · discharges to the sea, an estuary or tidal water
78 spills · 1,372 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
💧
South West Water · into Trib Of St Lawrence Stream · 3.6 km away in a straight line · no mapped watercourse close enough to be sure
36 spills · 18 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
💧
South West Water · into Bodmin Town Leat · 5.9 km away in a straight line · not connected to this gauge on the river map
42 spills · 27 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last

1 other overflow within 6 km is downstream of this gauge or on another branch of the river network, so it is 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 →

Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2026.

Rainfall & Weather

Loading rainfall and weather data...

How often this river runs high

In a typical year this gauge reaches its typical high of 1.50 m on about 1 day. This year so far: 3 days.

2026 3 days so far
2025 1 day
2024 0 days
2023 1 day
2022 0 days
2021 0 days
2020 2 days
2019 1 day
2018 0 days
2017 0 days

Counted from each day's highest reading. Days with missing or implausible readings are left out.

Flood history near this gauge

Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2006 for the 16 flood areas linked to this gauge (nearest 0.2 km away).

9severe warnings 78flood warnings 238flood alerts

Most recent flood warning: 2 Feb 2026 — South Cornwall Coast from Lizard Point to Gribbin Head excluding the tidal Fal Estuary

Year by year
YearSevereWarningsAlerts
2026 0 3 15
2025 0 5 20
2024 0 8 22
2023 0 5 12
2022 0 0 5
2021 0 0 10
2020 0 12 25
2019 0 6 18
2018 0 2 24
2017 0 0 11
2016 0 5 22
2015 0 2 13
2014 6 13 8
2013 0 1 6
2012 2 8 14
2011 0 0 9
2010 0 2 3
2008 1 0 1
2007 0 1 0
2006 0 5 0

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 Lostwithiel flood history.

Flood areas linked to this gauge

Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 16 areas linked to this gauge, nearest first.

Show 8 more

Catchment Character

🌊 Mixed response A balance of quick runoff and slower groundwater baseflow.

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
0.52
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
1,529 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +1% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
0.3%
largely rural
Median Annual Flood
50.90 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
82.58 m³/s
27 Dec 1979 · daily mean, not the instantaneous peak
Flow-Duration Curve
mean 4.7614.413.040.8895% (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 15%Grassland 71%Arable 6%Heath/scrub 3%Urban 1%Other 4%
Grassland 76% → 71% since 1990

Flow affected by: surface-water abstraction, reservoir influence, public water supply.

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

Compound Crump profile weir with tailwater recorder. Flows influenced by Colliford and Siblybank reservoirs.

More detail

The catchment

Moderate relief catchment whose headwaters drain the kaolinised granite of Bodmin Moor. Middle and low reaches drain Devonian slates and grits. Some valley storage in gravels. Low grade agriculture, grazing, some forestry and cultivation. Pre-reservoir FARL2015 (for WINFAP 5.3 or later) or FARL (for earlier versions of WINFAP) should be used with these records because the peak flow data after the reservoir started impounding is rejected. Pre- and post-reservoir values for FARL2015 are 0.968 and 0.9132, respectively. Pre- and post-reservoir values for FARL are 0.985 and 0.92, respectively.

The station

Compound Crump profile weir with tailwater recorder, with middle crest length 3.5m and 2 side crests of 6.5m (16.5m total). Piers at 1.75m, wing walls at 2.5m. Superseded velocity-area station 48002 (Fowey at Restormel One), from which pre-1973 data is taken.

How it measures flow

Flood banks contain flows up to wing wall height, though drowning occurs ~0.8-1.0m. Upstream cableway, fish counter. Theoretical rating to 0.9m (~25 cumecs), updated in 2011 to fit gaugings above this level. Colliford Reservoir began to fill in July 1983. Recent gaugings and analysis from a tailwater recorder show that the weir goes non-modular from a stage of approx 1 m and is totally drowned above 1.3 m. However drowning is dealt with through rating by gaugings. Rating revised following gauging of 11/2010 event. Gaugings taken during 12/2012 floods confirmed this. Bypassing on left hand bank during 2012 flood but insignificant (<5%). Three peak flow ratings across period of record. Ratings sound across the range as max gauging is approx max recorded stage.

Flow regime

Runoff reduced by public water supply abstraction, causing substantial modifications to flow. 12-13% of the catchment is impounded - Colliford (1983) & Siblybank (1969) reservoirs . Other public water supply exports also affect the flow.

The flow record

Gap in peak flow rating record from October to December 1993 due to upgrade of the fish counter and remedial work on weir crest . Peak Flow data are rejected post-1983. Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in October 2018 (WINFAP Files v7) and in August 2024 (WINFAP Files v13).

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
Gauging structure
Operating since
1961
Station datum
9.2 mAOD
Flow record
1961–2024 · 63 yrs · 100% complete
Peak-flow record
since 1961
Hydrometric area
48
Measured by
Environment Agency

Frequently asked questions

Is the River Fowey at Restormel flooding today?

The current level is 0.25m, 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 Restormel?

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 Fowey at Restormel?

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 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:

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, recorded floods, warning history, river behaviour and nearby storm overflows. £19 one-off. Learn more →