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0.08

Birstwith

Nidd
Swale, Ure, Nidd and Upper Ouse catchment • Birstwith • North Yorkshire • ID: F2106 • Level
(33m ago) • 3 readings/hr • 149 views

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Current Level
0.081 m
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.083 m
24h Min
0.081 m
Typical Range
0.11 - 2.10
m
Highest Recorded
3.66 m
EA official record
3.56 in our data (since Dec 1976)
Current level is 2% of this
🚽 Sewage overflows nearby

Recent Water Levels

🌍 floodradar.co.uk
1 day

Recent Readings

Falling · -0.2 cm over 6h
23 Aug 23:15 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 23:00 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 22:45 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 21:30 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 21:15 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 21:00 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 20:45 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 20:30 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 20:15 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 20:00 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 19:45 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 19:30 ▬ steady 0.081 m
23 Aug 19:15 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.081 m
23 Aug 19:00 ▬ steady 0.082 m
23 Aug 18:45 ▬ steady 0.082 m
23 Aug 18:30 ▬ steady 0.082 m
23 Aug 18:15 ▬ steady 0.082 m
23 Aug 18:00 ▬ steady 0.082 m
23 Aug 17:45 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.082 m
23 Aug 17:30 0.083 m

Rainfall & Weather

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Flood history near this gauge

Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2012 for the 7 flood areas linked to this gauge (nearest 1.6 km away).

1severe warning 16flood warnings 0flood alerts

Most recent flood warning: 1 Jan 2025River Nidd at Birstwith

Year by year
YearSevereWarningsAlerts
2025 0 1 0
2023 0 1 0
2022 0 7 0
2021 0 2 0
2020 1 3 0
2012 0 2 0

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 Birstwith flood history.

Nearby Stations

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Station Details

  • Monitoring Station: Birstwith
  • Watercourse: River Nidd
  • Nearest Town: Birstwith
  • County: North Yorkshire
  • Nearest reservoir: Scargill Ire (6.8 km) · 39.2% full (as of 10 Aug 2026)
  • Coordinates: 54°2'17"N 1°39'1"W (54.038156, -1.650292)
  • Open in: Google Maps · Apple Maps (opens your maps app)
  • Date Opened: 16 Dec 1976
  • Status: Active
  • Station Type: River level station
  • Station Reference: F2106
  • EA Gauge ID: F2106-level-stage-i-15_min-m
  • Parameter: Level
  • Unit: m
  • Typical rise rate: 2 cm/hr (p95 sustained over 90 days)
  • Typical data delay: ~22 min (measured reading→publication lag)
  • Tidal: No
  • Lock / structure: No
  • Catchment Area: Swale, Ure, Nidd and Upper Ouse
  • Typical Range: 0.105 – 2.100 m
  • Drainage Area: 218 km² upstream of this gauge
  • Flow Data: Available (m³/s) via EA Hydrology
  • EA Cross-check: 0.08 m (EA at 23 Aug 23:15)
  • Flow Archive: National River Flow Archive ↗

Geographic coordinates may reflect the access point for the gauge, and not the precise location in the watercourse that it is taking readings from.

Catchment Character

🌊 Fairly flashy Responds 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
0.36
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
1,323 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +10% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
0.4%
largely rural
Median Annual Flood
99.11 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Recorded Flow
121 m³/s
20 Feb 2022
Flow-Duration Curve
mean 5.1517.002.540.8605% (high)% of days exceeded95% (low)
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 5%Grassland 47%Heath/scrub 46%Urban 1%Other 1%

Flow affected by: surface-water abstraction, reservoir influence, public water supply.

Photos

Gauging-station photographs from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).

Photos © NRFA / UKCEH & the measuring authority — shown at web resolution. Full gallery on the NRFA ↗

About this gauge

Velocity area station with a riffle control downstream. Catchment heavily reservoired.

More detail

The catchment

Geology: mostly Millstone Grit, Sandstones and Shales, with some small inliers of Carboniferous Limestone in Upper Nidderdale. An east-west fault runs along the line of the river. Rural catchment, predominantly grassland, moorland headwaters. No known catchment changes.

The station

Velocity area station approximately 17m wide. Riffle control 50m d/s, may be subject to erosion as the bed is rocky and unstable.

How it measures flow

Level measurement began with a pressure recorder, then updated to a float well when the hut was constructed in Nov 1976. There is some suspicion that a downstream gravel shoal has moved, possibly on more than one occasion, altering the stage-discharge relationship. Rated by current meter from the bridge at the gauging section (September 2012). Daily flow rating revised in 1999 to account for a change in channel dimensions caused by the 1991 flood. Rating reviewed again in 2014 producing two new ratings pre and post 2009 flood event. Four peak flow ratings across the period of record. Station will need regular re-rating due to shifting control. Good fit to available gaugings though only two above QMED.

Flow regime

Heavily reservoired catchment. Some losses to public water supply from Angram / Scar House reservoirs. Gouthwaite compensation reservoir has a substantial effect on flows and is used to maintain dry weather flows.

The flow record

Daily flows reworked after a flood in 1991 changed channel dimensions. Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in October 2018 (WINFAP Files v7).

Descriptions from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH). NRFA station record ↗

Gauge Details

How this gauging station is built and how long it has measured (NRFA / UKCEH).

Gauge type
Velocity–area
Operating since
1975
Station datum
67.4 mAOD
Flow record
1977–2024 · 47 yrs · 100% complete
Peak-flow record
since 1975
Hydrometric area
27
Measured by
Environment Agency

Frequently asked questions

Is the River Nidd at Birstwith flooding today?

The current level is 0.08m, which is below the typical range. Flooding is very unlikely at this level.

Is the river level rising or falling at Birstwith?

Based on the most recent readings, the level is currently steady. The chart above shows the last 7 days of measurements, updated roughly every 15 minutes.

What is a normal level for the River Nidd at Birstwith?

The typical range at this station is 0.11m to 2.10m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 2.10m are higher than usually seen and may indicate a flood risk.

How often is this river level data updated?

Readings are taken by the Environment Agency gauge roughly every 15 minutes and FloodRadar refreshes its data continuously, so the level shown is normally less than an hour old.

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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:

Check any UK postcode’s flood risk →

🏠 Buying or renting around here? Get the Property Flood-Risk Report for any English postcode — official risk band, floods since 1946, warning history, river behaviour and nearby storm overflows. £19 one-off. Learn more →