Rose 0.09 m since 05:30 — peaked 0.40 at 11:15, now 0.40 and holding
0.40
Kirkby
Alt
Lower Mersey catchment
• Aintree • Liverpool City Region • ID: 694744 • Level
(21m ago) • 4 readings/hr • 145 views
Set water level alerts
Get notified about Kirkby — tick as many as you like, they all share the notify settings below.
1 person already gets alerts for this gauge.
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:m
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
0.397 m
▲▼ Crested · peaked 0.40
24h Max
0.404 m
24h Min
0.291 m
Typical Range
0.21 - 1.30
m
Highest Recorded
2.22 m
EA official record
2.27 in our data (since Oct 1977)
Current level is 18% 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.
3 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 3.1 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 3 report not discharging.
United Utilities · into Rimrose Brook, Trib Rvr Mersey · 5.9 km away in a straight line · its water cannot be followed on the map
2 spills · 1 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
1 other overflow within 6 km is downstream of this gauge or on another branch of the river network, so it is 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 Aintree flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 10 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
0.49
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
916 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +2% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
27%
heavily urbanised
Median Annual Flood
17.62 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
23.62 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.
Open channel, velocity area station with non-standard shallow V bed control which drowns at a low level.
More detail
The catchment
Very flat catchment; boundary on SW side difficult to define. Geology mostly of blown sand deposits with Boulder Clay over Sherwood Sandstone. Highly urbanised, containing parts of north Liverpool and Kirkby. No significant catchment changes.
The station
A non-standard shallow V bed control (side slopes 1:20) opened in September 1977. This superseded an open channel, velocity area station (1963) which suffered from erosion and deposition of silt. There is a broad-crested weir 800m d/s.
How it measures flow
The weir drowns at a low level and all high flows are measured under drowned conditions. No bypassing reported. Siltation may cause inlet pipe blockage and lag between stilling well and river level. Transducer (PTX) in-river from 26 Nov 1998 to 24 Nov 2003 and installed in c2015 as comparison with stilling well record. Gaugings taken from upstream footbridge using bridge gauging equipment or an ADCP. Separate peak flow ratings apply before and after the construction of the weir in 1977, and there is a good fit to gaugings in both periods, although no pre-weir gaugings were taken during high flows.
Flow regime
Industrial abstractions and discharges. Large sewage treatment works upstream at Fazakerley can cause fluctuations in daily mean flows.
The flow record
Gap in data 1/4/1986 to 30/10/1986 while station repaired after vandalism. Record from open channel station (i.e. before weir was built in 1977) of unknown quality due to silt deposition and removal and lack of high flow gaugings. AMAX and POT data are therefore excluded from analysis pre-1977. Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in October 2018 (WINFAP Files v7). Missing data in November 2022 due to blockage of stilling well inlet pipe affecting primary and backup measurement.
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Alt at Kirkby flooding today?
The current level is 0.40m, which is within the typical range of 0.21 to 1.30m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Kirkby?
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 Alt at Kirkby?
The typical range at this station is 0.21m to 1.30m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 1.30m 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:
FloodRadar
Log inCreate free account
