Bristol Avon Little Avon Axe and North Somerset St catchment
• Hambrook • South Gloucestershire • ID: 53134 • Level
(21m ago) • 3 readings/hr • 242 views
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⤴Unusual rise — FloodRadar+Top 1% rise rate for this gauge.
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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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Current Level
0.173 mASD
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.208 mASD
24h Min
0.171 mASD
Typical Range
0.24 - 2.10
mASD
Highest Recorded
3.00 mASD
EA official record
2.99 in our data (since Jun 1983)
Current level is 6% 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 7 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.
10 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 3.2 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 10 report not discharging.
Wessex Water · into Fishponds Brook Via Sws · 1.9 km away in a straight line · its watercourse is not on the river map
16 spills · 46 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
82 more within 6 km whose connection is not known.
21 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 Hambrook flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 14 areas linked to this gauge, nearest first.
🌊 Fairly flashyResponds 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
0.40
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
866 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +8% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
6.4%
partly urbanised
Median Annual Flood
12.06 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
20.76 m³/s
30 Oct 2000 · 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.
Crump profile weir opened in 1978 with pumping station upstream of gauging station.
More detail
The catchment
Geology is mainly Coal Measures to the east of the River Frome, and Lias to the west. Responsive catchment, however detention lakes 4 to 6km upstream may truncate peaks. Land use is predominantly rural contains the town of Yate. No major changes to catchment.
The station
Station opened in 1978. Crump profile weir, crest 7.5m broad.
How it measures flow
Full range structure, but drowns out at high flows. Estimated 100-year flow contained by structure and it appears to have been over-designed. One theoretical rating applied across period of record. Gaugings can be difficult at site due to deep and slow moving water upstream. The site also suffers from siltation behind the weir.
Flow regime
Detention lakes upstream of gauge. Pumping station upstream of gauging station.
The flow record
Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in September 2023 (WINFAP Files v12).
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Bristol Frome at Frenchay flooding today?
The current level is 0.17m, which is below the typical range. Flooding is very unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Frenchay?
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.
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. Only about 4.7mm of rain has fallen nearby in the last 7 days, so the flow is being sustained mainly by groundwater. 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 Bristol Frome at Frenchay?
The typical range at this station is 0.24m 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 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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