Beam and Ingrebourne catchment
• Elm Park • Greater London • ID: 5541TH • Level
(21m ago) • 4 readings/hr • 133 views
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⤴Unusual rise — FloodRadar+Top 1% rise rate for this gauge.
Height for "Above a height"
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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
0.097 mASD
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.100 mASD
24h Min
0.097 mASD
Typical Range
0.08 - 1.14
mASD
Highest Recorded
1.67 mASD
EA official record
1.63 in our data (since Jan 1982)
Current level is 6% 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
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 Thames Tidal · 5.1 km away in a straight line · discharges to the sea, an estuary or tidal water
13 spills · 85 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 →
This gauge rarely reaches its typical high of 1.14 m:
1 day since 2017.
This year so far: 0 days.
20260 days so far
20250 days
20240 days
20230 days
20220 days
20211 day
20200 days patchy data
20190 days
20180 days
20170 days
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.
Flood history near this gauge
Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2007 for the 21 flood
areas linked to this gauge (nearest 1.0 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 Elm Park flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 21 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
0.37
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
614 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +3% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
34%
heavily urbanised
Median Annual Flood
8.73 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
13.70 m³/s
23 Jun 2016 · 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.
An Essex modified Flat V Crump weir situated in a mainly rural headwaters with significant urban influences in lower reaches.
More detail
The catchment
A predominantly impermeable catchment. (London Clay exposed over much of the northern catchment with Claygate Beds, Bagshot Beds, Pebble Gravel and Boulder Clay capping the higher ground. Terrace gravels cover the London Clay in the southern half with narrow bands of London Clay and Alluvium bordering the river. Mainly rural headwaters with substantial expanding urban development in the lower reaches.
The station
Essex (modified Flat V Crump) weir in 10.4m wide section. The weir is non-standard. Used for both water resource and flood risk management.
How it measures flow
Model-based calibration assumes modularity and drowning is uncommon. Rating estimates of flow thought to be reasonable, gauged approaching QMED. One peak flow rating has been applied across the period of record. Levels are affected by Washlands gate and flap valve controlling flow into the Thames.
Flow regime
Runoff increased by effluent returns but reduced by industrial/agricultural abstraction. Flood storage lagoons built on the River Rom, from the late 1980s onwards, influence flows patterns.
The flow record
Naturalised flows available 1966-7, there is a very small net diminution in runoff. The site is prone to vandalism and data has been lost between 01/07/00 - 28/01/01 and 18/04/2020 - 01/06/2020. Peak flows rejected during WY2000/2001 due to the AMAX being recording at a neighbour station during this period. Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in August 2024 (WINFAP Files v13).
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Beam at Hornchurch_Bretons Farm flooding today?
The current level is 0.10m, which is within the typical range of 0.08 to 1.14m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Hornchurch_Bretons Farm?
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 Beam at Hornchurch_Bretons Farm?
The typical range at this station is 0.08m to 1.14m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 1.14m 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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