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0.33

Briggswath

Esk 🌊 Tidal
Esk and Coast catchment • Briggswath • North Yorkshire • ID: F2902 • Level
This gauge is tidally influenced — levels rise and fall with each tide, so rapid changes here are normal and don't necessarily indicate flooding.
(32m ago) • 3 readings/hr • 128 views

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Not an emergency service — if in danger call 999. Alerts rely on EA/SEPA data and are best-efforts. Terms

Current Level
0.334 m
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.420 m
24h Min
0.334 m
Typical Range
0.36 - 1.30
m
Highest Recorded
4.00 m
EA official record
3.95 in our data (since Oct 1992)
Current level is 8% of this
🚽 Sewage overflows nearby

Recent Water Levels

🌍 floodradar.co.uk
1 day

Flood predictions aren't generated for tidal gauges — their levels are driven by the tide, not by catchment rainfall, so the forecast models would have no skill here.

Recent Readings

Falling · -3 cm over 10h
23 Aug 23:15 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.334 m
23 Aug 23:00 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.335 m
23 Aug 22:30 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.336 m
23 Aug 21:30 ▼ -0.3 cm 0.337 m
23 Aug 20:00 ▬ steady 0.340 m
23 Aug 19:45 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.340 m
23 Aug 19:30 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.341 m
23 Aug 19:15 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.342 m
23 Aug 18:30 ▬ steady 0.343 m
23 Aug 18:15 ▬ steady 0.343 m
23 Aug 18:00 ▬ steady 0.344 m
23 Aug 17:45 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.344 m
23 Aug 17:30 ▬ steady 0.345 m
23 Aug 17:15 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.345 m
23 Aug 17:00 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.346 m
23 Aug 16:30 ▼ -0.2 cm 0.347 m
23 Aug 16:15 ▼ -0.4 cm 0.349 m
23 Aug 14:45 ▼ -0.2 cm 0.353 m
23 Aug 14:30 ▼ -0.4 cm 0.355 m
23 Aug 13:30 0.359 m

Rainfall & Weather

Loading rainfall and weather data...

Flood history near this gauge

Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2011 for the 7 flood areas linked to this gauge (nearest 0.1 km away).

1severe warning 111flood warnings 207flood alerts

Most recent flood warning: 5 Feb 2026North Sea at Sandsend

Year by year
YearSevereWarningsAlerts
2026 0 2 6
2025 0 2 12
2024 0 16 27
2023 0 12 14
2022 0 3 13
2021 0 11 16
2020 0 9 19
2019 0 6 17
2018 0 9 19
2017 0 13 11
2016 0 6 13
2015 0 7 13
2014 0 5 12
2013 1 5 4
2012 0 3 4
2011 0 2 7

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 Briggswath flood history.

Nearby Stations

Loading nearby stations...

Station Details

  • Monitoring Station: Briggswath
  • Watercourse: River Esk
  • Nearest Town: Briggswath
  • County: North Yorkshire
  • Coordinates: 54°27'44"N 0°39'16"W (54.462097, -0.654478)
  • Open in: Google Maps · Apple Maps (opens your maps app)
  • Date Opened: 2 Oct 1992
  • Status: Active
  • Station Type: River level station
  • Station Reference: F2902
  • EA Gauge ID: F2902-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: 🌊 Yes — levels follow the tide
  • Lock / structure: No
  • Catchment Area: Esk and Coast
  • Typical Range: 0.361 – 1.300 m
  • Drainage Area: 325 km² upstream of this gauge
  • Flow Data: Available (m³/s) via EA Hydrology
  • EA Cross-check: 0.33 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

🌊 Flashy Rain runs off fast — levels rise and fall sharply, often 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
0.35
flashy — rain runs off fast
Avg Annual Rainfall
934 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +4% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
0.4%
largely rural
Median Annual Flood
136 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Recorded Flow
142 m³/s
5 Mar 1999
Flow-Duration Curve
mean 4.8717.462.350.6245% (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 11%Grassland 34%Arable 1%Heath/scrub 53%Urban 1%

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

Multi-path ultrasonic station in a permeable catchment in the North York Moors. Replaced Esk at Sleights (27050); combined record held at Briggswath.

More detail

The catchment

Permeable headwaters (Jurassic limestone of the North York Moors) thence mainly Middle Oolite and Middle Lias; extensive Drift cover. A rural catchment with moorland headwaters. No known catchment changes.

The station

Multi-path ultrasonic station installed at Briggswath in a stable, 30m wide channel in 1992. Gauge has a tendency to drop out on the rising limb of the hydrograph, due to long path lengths and high suspended solids. Station replaced 27050 (Sleights, closed January 1998) in 1992, which was a velocity area station with a broad-crested masonry weir and a fish pass on left bank.

How it measures flow

Five ratings across the period of record (three for Sleights data, two for Briggswath data). At Briggswath, there is the same limb for peak flows but different lower flow limbs due to a hydro-electric power abstraction downstream at Ruswarp weir from 2012 altering the low flow control. The ultrasonic gauge is not affected by the hydro-electric power, at low flow the rating is just used for infilling gaps. The high flow rating is not affected by the hydro-electric power and is still used in preference to the ultrasonic for peak flows. Cableway gaugings extend to a reasonable level. At Sleights, the weir (25m wide) had a 1m long crest (5.59 mAOD) and a fish pass (11.73m wide and 0.71m lower). Low flows were contained in the fish pass that was restored in 1993 but with no change to the rating. Largest events at Sleights were out of bank.

Flow regime

Responsive and sensibly natural flow regime with no known artificial influences noted at either of the merged sites.

The flow record

Following statistical assessment of continuity, mean and peak flow data are combined records for Sleights (27050) and Briggswath (27092); POT thresholds prior to merge were 59.986 and 57.784, respectively. Full period of record data reviewed and released in September 2019 (WINFAP Files v8).

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
Ultrasonic
Operating since
1992
Station datum
7.0 mAOD
Flow record
1970–2024 · 54 yrs · 97% complete
Peak-flow record
since 1992
Hydrometric area
27
Measured by
Environment Agency

Frequently asked questions

Is the River Esk at Briggswath flooding today?

The current level is 0.33m, which is below the typical range. Flooding is very unlikely at this level.

Is the river level rising or falling at Briggswath?

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 Esk at Briggswath?

The typical range at this station is 0.36m 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 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 →