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0.18

Kildwick

Aire
Aire and Calder catchment • Kildwick • North Yorkshire • ID: F1503 • Level
(23m ago) • 1 reading/hr • 158 views

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Current Level
0.183 m
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.196 m
24h Min
0.183 m
Typical Range
0.19 - 1.60
m
Highest Recorded
5.62 m
2 Dec 1966
Since Nov 1966
Current level is 3% of this
🚽 Sewage overflows nearby

Recent Water Levels

🌍 floodradar.co.uk
1 day

Recent Readings

Falling · -0.3 cm over 6h
23 Aug 22:45 ▬ steady 0.183 m
23 Aug 21:30 ▬ steady 0.183 m
23 Aug 21:15 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.183 m
23 Aug 21:00 ▲ +0.1 cm 0.184 m
23 Aug 20:45 ▬ steady 0.183 m
23 Aug 20:30 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.183 m
23 Aug 20:15 ▬ steady 0.184 m
23 Aug 20:00 ▬ steady 0.184 m
23 Aug 19:45 ▬ steady 0.184 m
23 Aug 19:30 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.184 m
23 Aug 19:15 ▬ steady 0.185 m
23 Aug 19:00 ▬ steady 0.185 m
23 Aug 18:45 ▬ steady 0.185 m
23 Aug 18:30 ▬ steady 0.185 m
23 Aug 18:15 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.185 m
23 Aug 18:00 ▲ +0.1 cm 0.186 m
23 Aug 17:45 ▼ -0.1 cm 0.185 m
23 Aug 17:30 ▬ steady 0.186 m
23 Aug 17:15 ▬ steady 0.186 m
23 Aug 17:00 0.186 m

Rainfall & Weather

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Flood history near this gauge

Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2011 for the 20 flood areas linked to this gauge (nearest 0.1 km away).

58flood warnings 271flood alerts

Most recent flood warning: 1 Jan 2025Cononley Beck at Cononley

Year by year
YearWarningsAlerts
2026 0 1
2025 5 6
2024 3 17
2023 0 20
2022 5 13
2021 4 21
2020 13 24
2019 1 26
2018 0 12
2017 0 23
2016 0 16
2015 24 36
2014 0 13
2013 0 10
2012 3 28
2011 0 5

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 Kildwick flood history.

Nearby Stations

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Station Details

  • Monitoring Station: Kildwick
  • Watercourse: River Aire
  • Nearest Town: Kildwick
  • County: North Yorkshire
  • Nearest reservoir: Whinny Gill Ire (5.5 km) · 91.1% full (as of 10 Aug 2026)
  • Coordinates: 53°54'27"N 1°59'5"W (53.907443, -1.984735)
  • Open in: Google Maps · Apple Maps (opens your maps app)
  • Date Opened: 1 Jan 1970
  • Status: Active
  • Station Type: River level station
  • Station Reference: F1503
  • EA Gauge ID: F1503-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: Aire and Calder
  • Typical Range: 0.194 – 1.600 m
  • Drainage Area: 282 km² upstream of this gauge
  • Flow Data: Available (m³/s) via EA Hydrology
  • EA Cross-check: 0.18 m (EA at 23 Aug 22:15)
  • 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
0.39
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
1,221 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +8% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
1.9%
largely rural
Median Annual Flood
58.03 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Recorded Flow
137 m³/s
26 Dec 2015
Flow-Duration Curve
mean 6.7425.763.160.6585% (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 4%Grassland 80%Arable 1%Heath/scrub 11%Urban 3%Other 1%

Flow affected by: surface-water abstraction.

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 gauging a predominantly rural catchment with light urbanisation in Skipton.

More detail

The catchment

Geology: mainly Carboniferous Limestone with some Millstone Grit series, with extensive Boulder Clay cover. Rural catchment, over three-quarters grassland, draining the eastern Pennines. The catchment headwaters are undeveloped with moorland. Land use consists of upland rough grazing, and pasture and light urbanisation in the valley bottoms (Skipton is the largest town). No known significant catchment changes.

The station

Velocity area station situated in 21m wide channel d/s of a bend in the river and u/s of the old, arched Kildwick Bridge. Station provides full range flows.

How it measures flow

Bridge arches form the primary hydraulic control at all levels. Flow is through between one (9.5m wide) and four (29.5m combined width) of the arches depending on level. Flow begins to surcharge the arches at different levels. The bridge sills provide the low flow control; arch soffits partial control at high flows but also influenced by downstream channel control. The road bridge and steep grassy banks prevent bypassing, all but the highest discharges are contained. Flood Studies Report was graded Z in 1975. One peak flow rating applied across period of record. Increasing scatter in gaugings beyond 1m stage. Gauged to more than 1.5 x QMED and to 87% of AMAX3. Check gaugings are done at a cableway around 100m downstream of the bridge.

Flow regime

Between Skipton and Kildwick, there are considerable areas of washlands, which fill during floods and attenuate downstream flows. Abstraction for supply is made from reservoirs at Embsay and Elslack and for canal support at Winterburn. The Leeds-Liverpool Canal can influence the flow pattern but has a small overall impact. There is a small net export from the catchment.

The flow record

Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in September 2022 (WINFAP Files v11).

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
1968
Station datum
87.3 mAOD
Flow record
1968–2024 · 56 yrs · 100% complete
Peak-flow record
since 1966
Hydrometric area
27
Measured by
Environment Agency

Frequently asked questions

Is the River Aire at Kildwick flooding today?

The current level is 0.18m, which is below the typical range. Flooding is very unlikely at this level.

Is the river level rising or falling at Kildwick?

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 Aire at Kildwick?

The typical range at this station is 0.19m to 1.60m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 1.60m 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 →