Tame Anker and Mease catchment
• Branston • Staffordshire • ID: 4019 • Level
(21m ago) • 3 readings/hr • 189 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
1.127 mASD
▲ Rising slightly
24h Max
1.127 mASD
24h Min
1.071 mASD
Typical Range
1.02 - 2.04
mASD
Highest Recorded
3.88 mASD
EA official record
3.88 in our data (since May 1959)
Current level is 29% 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.
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.
370 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 4.3 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 361 report not discharging, and for 9 the monitor is offline or has not reported, so their status is not known.
Severn Trent Water · into Tributary Of River Trent · 4.5 km away in a straight line · no mapped watercourse close enough to be sure
33 spills · 449 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
10 more within 6 km whose connection is not known.
20 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 →
In a typical year this gauge reaches its typical high of 2.04 m
on about 35 days.
This year so far: 44 days.
202644 days, 11 of them high · 11 highso far
202521 days, 6 of them high · 6 high
202467 days, 13 of them high · 13 high
202338 days, 8 of them high · 8 high
202214 days
202130 days, 8 of them high · 8 high
202044 days, 7 of them high · 7 high
201957 days, 11 of them high · 11 high
201828 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
201715 days
Counted from each day's highest reading. Days with missing or implausible readings are left out.
The darker part is days above 2.68 m, the level this gauge tops only a few days a year.
Flood history near this gauge
Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2007 for the 10 flood
areas linked to this gauge (nearest 2.6 km away).
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 Branston flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 10 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
745 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +3% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
15%
heavily urbanised
Median Annual Flood
174 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
351 m³/s
7 Nov 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.
Velocity area station with complex rating history owing to river regrading in 1965 and 1973 draining a very large catchment that contains urban and industrial land use.
More detail
The catchment
Very large catchment. Small areas of Coal Measures in the Stoke area. Approx 25% of the catchment is overlain by Boulder Clay and 10% by valley gravel, terraces and alluvium. Drift free areas mostly Triassic Mudstones and Triassic and Permian Sandstones. A large area of the catchment is urban with large urban industrial areas, otherwise, the main land use is mixed farming.
The station
Velocity area station. The left bank is a low lying golf course that is inundated from 2.68mASD. Cableway removed in 2014 - flow gaugings still performed in old cableway section.
How it measures flow
Complex rating history owing to river re-grading (1965 and 1973). Multiple peak flow ratings, particularly since 2001. High flow precision limited by ungauged flow over the left bank. Much storage in valley gravels. A number of gaugings have been taken to assess out of bank flows; on 1/11/2000 gaugings taken at 3.216mASD showed floodplain flow to be 26% of the total flow of 252m3/s. Extreme high flow gaugings carried out across the floodplain and main river section in Burton-upon-Trent, from St. Peters Bridge using a remote controlled ADCP. In-channel weed growth at the station can affect low and medium flow gaugings.
Flow regime
Flows substantially modified, particularly by imports into the Tame system.
The flow record
Summer flows reprocessed in 2010 for the period 2006-2010 to account for weed growth. 2011 flows reprocessed to account for severe weed growth. Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in October 2018 (WINFAP Files v7). The majority of low flows (~<15 m3/s) between 16 July - 30 September 2018 are flagged as suspect.
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Trent at Drakelow flooding today?
The current level is 1.13m, which is within the typical range of 1.02 to 2.04m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Drakelow?
Based on the most recent readings, the level is currently rising slightly. The chart above shows the last 12 hours of measurements by default (up to 7 days), updated roughly every 15 minutes.
What is a normal level for the River Trent at Drakelow?
The typical range at this station is 1.02m to 2.04m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 2.04m 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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5 Mar 2007 Measuring section during high flows with out of bank flow in golf course on opposite bank to gauging station
5 Mar 2007 Downstream section at high flows
Looking downstream from station
Station hut
Looking upstream from station