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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
0.357 m
▼ Falling (-3cm/hr)
24h Max
0.460 m
24h Min
0.120 m
Typical Range
0.10 - 1.92
m
Highest Recorded
2.26 m
EA official record
2.28 in our data (since Dec 1969)
Current level is 16% 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.
61 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 3.6 km away along the river. 4 report discharging now, 55 report not discharging, and for 2 the monitor is offline or has not reported, so their status is not known.
United Utilities · into Unnamed Trib Of Denton Brook · 2.7 km away in a straight line · its watercourse is not on the river map
65 spills · 178 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
26 more within 6 km whose connection is not known.
49 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 →
This gauge rarely reaches its typical high of 1.92 m:
1 day since 2017.
This year so far: 0 days.
20260 days so far
20251 day
20240 days
20230 days
20220 days patchy data
20210 days
20200 days
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 2012 for the 27 flood
areas linked to this gauge (nearest 1.1 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 Bredbury flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 27 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
1,264 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +7% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
15%
heavily urbanised
Median Annual Flood
62.89 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
67.72 m³/s
20 Jan 2021 · 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.
Curved masonry weir topped with a thin plate draining a heavily urbanised lower catchment.
More detail
The catchment
For the most part a narrow, steep sided valley network on Millstone Grit with peat moorland in upper reaches (includes Saddleworth Moor). Underlying geology of Coal Measures and Permian sandstones and mudstones overlain by Boulder Clay lower down. Sheep grazing in the headwaters; lower catchment heavily urbanised (east Manchester). No catchment changes known.
The station
Station opened in 1943 on an old masonry curved weir topped by a thin plate, 21m wide. Located just downstream of 90 degree bend and 2km upstream of Goyt confluence. Station is downstream of Broomstairs Bridge (69041).
How it measures flow
Drop of 5m over the crest, so no drowning at high flows. The weir is flanked by vertical side walls with a steep left bank which prevents bypassing. The right bank is lower, though bypassing is unlikely at the flows recorded. Gravel shoaling occurs at the base of the weir, extending 20m downstream. An old mill cut was closed in 1967 so that the entire flow now passes over the weir. Flow to the old mill (ie. before January 1967) was probably only a small percentage of flood flows, but some uncertainty as no data to confirm. Records from 1943; a model-based calibration was used before being superseded by one based on current metering in 1970. Gaugings carried out from footbridge downstream of weir. Coping stone removed in the flood of Nov-2000 affecting low flow rating. Recent rating reviews and use of hydraulic model increased confidence in flow estimates. Flood Studies Report grade B.
Flow regime
Low flows dominated by effluent returns. Many impoundments in the upper reaches control 25% of the catchment in total. The largest of these are Dovestone and Chew Reservoirs on the Chew Brook (draining Saddleworth Moor), which alone control 15% of the catchment.
The flow record
Revised daily flow data from start of record (1/1970) to 10/73 loaded in 2009 due to new rating that has greatly reduced the high flows: previous max GDF on 21/2/70 reduced from 137.9 to 34.9 m3s-1. Full re-rated daily flow record loaded in Oct 2011: main change is reduction in low flows of up to about 20% over 2001-09. Peak flows are excluded for the period March 1946 to late March 1952. There is a gap in the record from March 1946 to March 1948, and the charts from March 1948 to March 1952 appear unreliable, with truncated peaks. This truncation may have been caused by siltation, although this is not now regarded as a problem. After re-rating at both stations, most peak flows are now comparable with Broomstairs upstream (although Portwood AMAX still lower on 06/07/2012 and 29/07/2019). Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in September 2022 (WINFAP Files v11).
How this gauging station is built and how long it has measured (NRFA / UKCEH).
Gauge type
Gauging structure
Operating since
1943
Station datum
43.0 mAOD
Flow record
1969–2024 · 55 yrs · 95% complete
Peak-flow record
since 1943
Hydrometric area
69
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 Broomstairs Bridge: when about 6mm of rain falls near Broomstairs Bridge in 6h, this gauge usually starts rising about 2 hours later.
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Tame at Portwood flooding today?
The current level is 0.36m, which is within the typical range of 0.10 to 1.92m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Portwood?
Based on the most recent readings, the level is currently falling. 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. 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 Tame at Portwood?
The typical range at this station is 0.10m to 1.92m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 1.92m 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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21 Dec 2021 Tree on weir crest
29 Sep 2019 Portwood weir in high flow
18 May 2011 Weir
1983
Looking u/s to weir
Bridge used for gauging
View across weir from L bank
View u/s from gauging bridge to weir
Looking upstream at Weir