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⤴Unusual rise — FloodRadar+Top 1% rise rate for this gauge.
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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
0.694 m
▼ Easing (-2cm/hr)
24h Max
0.755 m
24h Min
0.694 m
Typical Range
0.62 - 4.05
m
Highest Recorded
6.33 m
EA official record
6.33 in our data (since Nov 2002)
Current level is 11% of this
Current Flow
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🚽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 6 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.
179 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 170 m away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 168 report not discharging, and for 11 the monitor is offline or has not reported, so their status is not known.
United Utilities · into Jenny Beck Culvert Via Surface Water Sewer · 3.8 km away in a straight line · reaches the river through a sewer or culvert
87 spills · 206 hours in 2025
No live feed for this overflow
44 more within 6 km whose connection is not known.
8 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 Kearsley flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 25 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
0.42
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
1,354 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +7% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
15%
heavily urbanised
Highest Daily Mean Flow
318 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.
Flow affected by: surface-water abstraction, public water supply, groundwater abstraction, effluent returns, industrial / agricultural abstraction.
About this gauge
Open channel rated flow site. Brick station building on left bank of the Irwell at Kearsley housing a Seba electric winch for flow gauging.
More detail
The catchment
Largely rural / farmland in upper reaches then becoming more urban through lower reaches upstream of station.
The station
Commissioned November 2002 to facilitate the operation of Littleton Road storage basin a further 8km downstream of the station in Salford. Originally level only, ultrasonics were installed to provide flow data for FCRM. Ultrasonics are no longer operational and flow data from the site has been re-processed using rating curves.
How it measures flow
Flow ratings produced based on a combination of now defunct ultrasonic stage / flow pairs and gaugings together with modelled high flows above stages of 4m (level of maximum gauging). Two ratings across period of record, before and after the December 2015 high flows that significantly changed the bed geometry.
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Irwell at Kearsley flooding today?
The current level is 0.69m, which is within the typical range of 0.62 to 4.05m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Kearsley?
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. 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 Irwell at Kearsley?
The typical range at this station is 0.62m to 4.05m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 4.05m 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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Free live river-level widget — ideal for parish councils, angling clubs and local sites. Updates automatically.
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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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