London catchment
• Catford • Greater London • ID: 4370TH • Level
(32m ago) • 4 readings/hr • 138 views
Set water level alerts
Get notified about Catford Hill — tick as many as you like, they all share the notify settings below.
Alert me when (tick one or more)
⤴Unusual rise — FloodRadar+Top 1% rise rate for this gauge.
Height for "Above a height"
Drag the line on the chart, or type a value:mASD
Quick pick:
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.
Notify by (tick one or more)
Your browser will ask permission, then you'll get a notification even when FloodRadar isn't open.
On iPhone: tap Share → Add to Home Screen first, then open it from there and set the alert. Show me how
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/NRW data and are best-efforts. Terms
Current Level
0.104 mASD
▲ Rising (+5cm/hr)
24h Max
0.104 mASD
24h Min
0.044 mASD
Typical Range
0.07 - 2.10
mASD
Highest Recorded
1.20 mASD
9 Jun 1992
Since Jan 1985
Current level is 9% 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 7 Oct (2 days behind — the EA publishes each day's mean a day or two after it ends; unchecked, provisional)via EA Hydrology
None of the storm overflows FloodRadar holds is traced upstream of this gauge on the mapped river network. That is not the same as none: the map leaves out many small streams and culverts, so an overflow it cannot place may still drain here, and not every company publishes every overflow. Those nearby are listed below.
Nearby, connection not known
Within 6 km in a straight line, but the river map cannot say whether their water passes this gauge.
Thames Water · into R.thames ( Tidal ) · 5.7 km away in a straight line · discharges to the sea, an estuary or tidal water
2 spills · 5 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
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 Catford flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 11 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
0.72
groundwater-fed — slow & steady
Avg Annual Rainfall
731 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +3% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
34%
heavily urbanised
Median Annual Flood
15.36 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
8.32 m³/s
30 Dec 2002 · 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 11%Grassland 32%Arable 7%Urban 50%
Arable 11% → 7% since 1990
Flow affected by: groundwater abstraction.
Photos
Gauging-station photographs from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).
Trapezoidal flume; regime heavily affected by urbanisation.
More detail
The catchment
The Ravensbourne rises as Tertiary sandstone springs in Keston Park (dry chalk valleys extend into the North Downs). The lower catchment is mainly impervious Eocene deposits. Below the headwaters the catchment is largely within London.
The station
Trapezoidal flume; breadth at the critical section: 4.267m; insensitive. Full range.
How it measures flow
One rating applied across period of record. Rating adjusted from theoretical to better fit spot flow measurements. Due to flashy nature of channel, EA have been unable to capture flows in third limb of rating and so it remains unproven. Because of this, Limb 3 remains theoretical with no adjustment for spot flow measurements in lower limbs.
Flow regime
Artificial influences evident at low flows. Regime heavily affected by urbanisation. Artificial influences (including sewage outflow and urban runoff) very evident at low flows - see June 2009.
The flow record
Full record reprocessed Feb 2019 when new rating was developed. Peak flows marked as rejected between 1986 and 1987 as ascending oscillations are present and appear suspicious. 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 Ravensbourne at Catford Hill flooding today?
The current level is 0.10m, which is within the typical range of 0.07 to 2.10m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Catford Hill?
Based on the most recent readings, the level is currently rising. 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 Ravensbourne at Catford Hill?
The typical range at this station is 0.07m to 2.10m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 2.10m 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.
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: