Lower Mersey catchment
• Upton (Wirral) • Liverpool City Region • ID: 685517 • Level
(32m ago) • 4 readings/hr • 140 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
0.162 m
▼ Easing
24h Max
0.337 m
24h Min
0.150 m
Typical Range
0.12 - 1.20
m
Highest Recorded
1.61 m
EA official record
1.61 in our data (since Dec 2005)
Current level is 10% 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.
7 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 440 m away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 7 report not discharging.
United Utilities · into Trib Carr Drain (To R. Birket) · 3.2 km away in a straight line · no mapped watercourse close enough to be sure
32 spills · 125 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
14 more within 6 km whose connection is not known.
12 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 Upton (Wirral) flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 12 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
0.51
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
790 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +4% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
17%
heavily urbanised
Median Annual Flood
4.00 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
3.50 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.
Land Cover (2023)
Woodland 11%Grassland 44%Arable 8%Urban 37%
Arable 17% → 8% since 1990
Photos
Gauging-station photographs from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).
Non-standard compound flume draining an urban catchment west of Birkenhead.
More detail
The catchment
Very flat and urbanised catchment. Geology mostly of blown sand deposits with Boulder Clay over Sherwood Sandstone. No catchment changes known.
The station
Station opened in 2005 on pre-existing non-standard compound flume in rectangular concrete channel, with long backslope giving a drop downstream.
How it measures flow
The very highest flows have been observed to spill out of bank upstream and to have approached the soffit of the bridge immediately upstream. The effect on the peak flow will have been slight. Peak flow rating based on low flow current meter gaugings within flume and high flow gaugings using ADCP from the bridge at the station. Rating extended beyond highest gauging (at 1.32m) using hydraulic model.
The flow record
First year of record rejected as it's a partial year of data. Some discontinuities in the stage record. Issues with the outstation in 2017-2018 mean that flows should be treated with caution. Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in September 2022 (WINFAP Files v11).
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Arrowe Brook at Acton Lane flooding today?
The current level is 0.16m, which is within the typical range of 0.12 to 1.20m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Acton Lane?
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 Arrowe Brook at Acton Lane?
The typical range at this station is 0.12m to 1.20m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 1.20m 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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Looking downstream at low flows
Looking upstream during high flows (gauged at this flow)
Looking downstream
Channel downstream of flume