Northern Manchester catchment
• Bury • Greater Manchester • ID: 690160 • Level
(33m 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
0.480 m
▲ Rising (+1cm/hr)
24h Max
0.759 m
24h Min
0.458 m
Typical Range
0.23 - 1.50
m
Highest Recorded
2.18 m
EA official record
A 3.91 reading (16 Mar 2013) sits in our unverified raw history and is not treated as the record
Current level is 22% 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 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.
45 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 900 m away along the river. 1 reports discharging now, 40 report not discharging, and for 4 the monitor is offline or has not reported, so their status is not known.
United Utilities · into Unnamed Pond · 3.4 km away in a straight line · discharges to a loch, lake or reservoir
1 spill · 0 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
5 more within 6 km whose connection is not known.
31 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 →
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 Bury flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 22 areas linked to this gauge, nearest first.
🌊 Fairly flashyResponds fairly quickly to rain, with moderate baseflow between events.
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
0.43
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
1,442 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +6% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
8.7%
partly urbanised
Median Annual Flood
113 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
117 m³/s
26 Dec 2015 · 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.
Velocity area station with broad-crested weir as control. Replaced Bury Bridge (69035) in 1995.
More detail
The catchment
Geology is post-glacial deposits over predominantly Millstone Grit, with some Coal Measures. A moderately urbanised catchment with steep moorland headwaters in the south Pennines; includes urban areas of Bury and Rawtenstall. No catchment changes known.
The station
Velocity area station, 22m wide section with good approach, opened November 1995 with a pre-existing curved broad-crested mill weir as the control. Replaced Bury Bridge (69035), 1.5km downstream; Kirkless Brook enters between the two stations. Bury Bridge and Bury Grounds overlapped from November 1995 to March 1998, and included high flows in November 1996. Stages are closely correlated.
How it measures flow
The curved weir is 28m wide, crest is in poor condition. Weir doesn't drown due to 3m drop over crest. The inlet pipe was extended to prevent silt blockage, and the level re-surveyed. Level readings prior to August 1998 were then lowered by 0.022m to make them consistent with later records. High flow gaugings carried out by cableway. A stage-stage relationship was derived to generate equivalent stages at Bury Grounds for the period of record at Bury Bridge, and the present Bury Grounds rating applied. One peak flow rating applied across period of record, derived from current meter gaugings.
Flow regime
Runoff influenced by storage reservoirs (Haslingden Grane system and Ogden, Clowbridge), abstractions and effluent returns.
The flow record
POT and AMAX data are presented for Bury Grounds including the period of record at Bury Bridge. Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in September 2019 (WINFAP Files v8).
How this gauging station is built and how long it has measured (NRFA / UKCEH).
Gauge type
Gauging structure
Operating since
1992
Station datum
79.8 mAOD
Flow record
1995–2024 · 29 yrs · 98% complete
Peak-flow record
since 1995
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 Farnworth: when about 6mm of rain falls near Farnworth 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 Irwell at Bury Ground flooding today?
The current level is 0.48m, which is within the typical range of 0.23 to 1.50m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Bury Ground?
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.
What is a normal level for the River Irwell at Bury Ground?
The typical range at this station is 0.23m 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:
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22 Jun 2012 High flow gauging
11 Aug 2011 High flow gauging in August 2011
Longer View
Looking Across Weir to Left Bank
Looking at Weir from Left Bank