Taw and North Devon Streams catchment
• Chittlehamholt • Devon • ID: 50115 • Level
(46m ago) • 4 readings/hr • 130 views
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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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EA/SEPA/NRW data and are best-efforts. Terms
Current Level
0.376 m
▼ Easing
24h Max
0.435 m
24h Min
0.264 m
Typical Range
0.27 - 1.70
m
Highest Recorded
3.28 m
EA official record
3.28 in our data (since Jan 1965)
Current level is 11% 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. The nearest rain gauge has sent no readings in the last day, so Nimbus has no recent measured rain to work from here.
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.
9 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 6.3 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 9 report not discharging.
South West Water · into Trib Of Hawkridge Brook (S) · 5.0 km away in a straight line · no mapped watercourse close enough to be sure
52 spills · 23 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 →
In a typical year this gauge reaches its typical high of 1.70 m
on about 6 days.
This year so far: 1 day.
20261 day so far
20254 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
20248 days, 4 of them high · 4 high
20237 days, 6 of them high · 6 high
20222 days
20219 days, 5 of them high · 5 high
202011 days, 6 of them high · 6 high
20197 days, 3 of them high · 3 high
20185 days, 3 of them high · 3 high
20172 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
Counted from each day's highest reading. Days with missing or implausible readings are left out.
The darker part is days above 1.93 m, the level this gauge tops only a few days a year.
Flood history near this gauge
Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2006 for the 6 flood
areas linked to this gauge (nearest 3.3 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 Chittlehamholt flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 6 areas linked to this gauge, nearest first.
🌊 Mixed responseA 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
0.50
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
1,419 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +4% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
0.4%
largely rural
Median Annual Flood
120 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
164 m³/s
22 Dec 2012 · 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.
Land Cover (2023)
Woodland 10%Grassland 76%Arable 12%Urban 2%
Arable 6% → 12% since 1990
Flow affected by: surface-water abstraction, reservoir influence, public water supply, effluent returns.
Photos
Gauging-station photographs from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).
Velocity area station built in 1965 with cableway.
More detail
The catchment
Fairly responsive catchment of moderate relief descending from Exmoor through incised, forested valleys. Geology of sandstones and shales; Devonian in headwaters, Carboniferous lower down. Land-use is predominantly rural with grazing and low grade agriculture. No major catchment changes.
The station
Velocity area station built in 1965 with cableway, rock ledges/gravel shoals as controls.
How it measures flow
Gauging by wading at low flows and off remote bridges at higher flows until 11/2001 when a cableway was built. Straight reach, affected by weed growth. Goes out of bank on left bank. Bypassing occurs. One rating applied across period of record. Gauged above bank full with good fit to rating.
Flow regime
Reservoir(s) in catchment have minor effect on flows. Low flows moderately affected by public water supply abstraction and augmentation from Exe-Taw transfers. Some effluent returns.
How this gauging station is built and how long it has measured (NRFA / UKCEH).
Gauge type
Velocity–area
Operating since
1965
Station datum
47.9 mAOD
Flow record
1965–2024 · 59 yrs · 100% complete
Peak-flow record
since 1965
Hydrometric area
50
Measured by
Environment Agency
Nearby Groundwater
Soil Moisture
Possible storm-overflow correlation
Rain upstream
This gauge has no rain model of its own, but it usually follows Taw Bridge: when about 10mm of rain falls near Taw Bridge in 6h, this gauge usually starts rising about 4 hours later.
Recent rain upstream: 0.1mm/6h — below Taw Bridge's usual trigger.
Record: this held 20 of 24 times (past storms) · rain gauge: Rainfall station
Experimental, from historical rain and river data. Not an official flood warning.
Related gauges
Measured from a year of how these gauges actually moved.
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Mole at Woodleigh flooding today?
The current level is 0.38m, which is within the typical range of 0.27 to 1.70m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Woodleigh?
Based on the most recent readings, the level is currently falling slightly. The chart above shows the last 12 hours of measurements by default (up to 7 days), updated roughly every 15 minutes.
Why is the level slowly falling?
When little or no rain has fallen for a while, a river level gradually drops as the water stored in the ground and soil drains away with nothing to replace it. This is called baseflow recession and is normal in dry spells. Only about 0.0mm of rain has fallen nearby in the last 7 days, so the flow is being sustained mainly by groundwater. A gentle decline like this is expected and is not a sign of a problem — downstream gauges often recede a little faster than headwaters further upstream, and levels recover once rain returns.
What is a normal level for the River Mole at Woodleigh?
The typical range at this station is 0.27m 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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