Get notified about Fornham St Martin — tick as many as you like, they all share the notify settings below.
Alert me when (tick one or more)
⤴Unusual rise — FloodRadar+Top 1% rise rate for this gauge.
Height for "Above a height"
Drag the line on the chart, or type a value:mASD
Quick pick:
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.
Get notified when recent rainfall near this gauge crosses its learnt rise trigger — an early "watch"
signal, typically hours before a rise. Experimental; not an official flood warning.
Notify by (tick one or more)
Your browser will ask permission, then you'll get a notification even when FloodRadar isn't open.
On iPhone: tap Share → Add to Home Screen first, then open it from there and set the alert. Show me how
Each one is saved as its own alert — pause or remove them individually any time.
Not an emergency service — if in danger call 999. Alerts rely on
EA/SEPA/NRW data and are best-efforts. Terms
Current Level
0.046 mASD
▲ Rising slightly
24h Max
0.050 mASD
24h Min
0.027 mASD
Typical Range
0.08 - 0.39
mASD
Highest Recorded
1.09 mASD
EA official record
1.12 in our data (since Sep 1985)
Current level is 4% 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 6 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.
2 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 8.8 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 2 report not discharging.
Anglian Water · into Trib River Lark · 2.9 km away in a straight line · no mapped watercourse close enough to be sure
1 spill · 0 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
2 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 0.39 m
on about 23 days.
This year so far: 16 days.
202616 days, 3 of them high · 3 highso far
20257 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
202442 days, 8 of them high · 8 high
202340 days, 3 of them high · 3 high
202215 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
202140 days, 7 of them high · 7 high
202034 days, 6 of them high · 6 high
20197 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
201819 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
20176 days
Counted from each day's highest reading. Days with missing or implausible readings are left out.
The darker part is days above 0.65 m, the level this gauge tops only a few days a year.
Flood history near this gauge
Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2021 for the 3 flood
areas linked to this gauge (nearest 0.4 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 Fornham St Martin flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 3 areas linked to this gauge, nearest first.
🌊 Groundwater-fedSlow and steady — fed largely by groundwater, so levels change gradually, not in sudden spikes.
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
0.66
groundwater-fed — slow & steady
Avg Annual Rainfall
643 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +4% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
6.7%
partly urbanised
Highest Daily Mean Flow
7.61 m³/s
2 Jan 2003 · 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.
Land Cover (2023)
Woodland 7%Grassland 28%Arable 51%Urban 14%
Arable 65% → 51% since 1990
Photos
Gauging-station photographs from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).
Complex station located just d/s from Bury St Edmunds, gauging otherwise predominantly rural catchment.
More detail
The catchment
Predominantly rural catchment with Bury St Edmunds just u/s from the station.
The station
Site consists of three parts: Central crump profile low flow weir, 2.57 m wide, set between flanks which are treated as a broad-crested weir 0.796 m wide (rb width 0.66 m, lb width 0.136 m, length of crest 1.30 m), and a side-weir for flood relief purposes, which consists of a crump weir 5.17 m wide in a bypass channel. Site located just d/s from Bury St Edmunds.
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Lark at Fornham St Martin flooding today?
The current level is 0.05m, which is below the typical range. Flooding is very unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Fornham St Martin?
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 Lark at Fornham St Martin?
The typical range at this station is 0.08m to 0.39m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 0.39m 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.
Embed this gauge on your website
Free live river-level widget — ideal for parish councils, angling clubs and local sites. Updates automatically.
Preview
📮 Flood risk by postcode near this gauge
Postcodes within 5 km with properties in the Environment Agency’s rivers-and-sea flood-risk bands:
FloodRadar
Log inCreate free account
