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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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EA/SEPA/NRW data and are best-efforts. Terms
Current Level
0.240 m
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.241 m
24h Min
0.194 m
Typical Range
0.21 - 2.50
m
Highest Recorded
3.20 m
EA official record
A 3.91 reading (16 Mar 2013) sits in our unverified raw history and is not treated as the record
Current level is 7% 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. The nearest rain gauge has sent no readings in the last day, so Nimbus has no recent measured rain to work from here.
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.
26 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 3.3 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 24 report not discharging, and for 2 the monitor is offline or has not reported, so their status is not known.
United Utilities · into Longford Brook · 3.3 km away in a straight line · its watercourse is not on the river map
29 spills · 279 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
17 more within 6 km whose connection is not known.
8 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 Warrington flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 27 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
0.47
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
931 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +3% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
16%
heavily urbanised
Median Annual Flood
29.38 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
37.49 m³/s
20 Jan 2021 · 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 in low-lying catchment containing some large urban areas.
More detail
The catchment
A low lying catchment of gentle relief. Coal Measures within the North overlain by sand and peat; Sherwood Sandstone in the South, overlain by Boulder Clay. Mixed farmland predominates but contains urban areas, including St Helens in the centre. Possible that there was a small increase in catchment area in late 1980s or very early 1990s with diversion of a ditch crossing Sankey Valley Park to join Sankey Brook upstream of the gauging station.
The station
Velocity-area station opened 1953. A trench-piled bed control and stone pitched left bank that was built in July 1983 acts as a weir up to 0.35m, above which it drowns.
How it measures flow
The channel bed is laden with stones and boulders. The highest flows are above bankfull, at 2.66 m on the right bank, but with the possibility of bypassing upstream before this. Susceptible to siltation and weed growth. Backwater problems from sluice operation ceased with closure of adjacent canal in 1976. Rating affected by land drainage improvement works downstream in 1976 and 1977. Subsequent channel regrading required frequent recalibration between 1977 and 1983, and a significant change occurred from the high flows of spring 1981. Multiple ratings applied across period of record. Few spot gaugings at high flows, some scatter. Gauging on 26/09/2012 carried out at Alder Roadbridge upstream of the spill/bypass.
Flow regime
Several small lakes (e.g. Newton Lake) and meres. Industrial abstraction and effluent.
The flow record
Revised daily flow data from start of record (1/1977) to 9/2006 loaded in 10/2009: flows from 17/6/1977 to 30/8/1977 increased by approx 2.5 times. Previous max GDF on 28/12/1978 reduced from 38.5 to 28.9 cumecs, other differences generally minor. Peak flows rejected until July 1983 when the control stabilised the rating. Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in August 2021 (WINFAP Files v10).
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Sankey Brook at Causey Bridge flooding today?
The current level is 0.24m, which is within the typical range of 0.21 to 2.50m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Causey Bridge?
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.
What is a normal level for the Sankey Brook at Causey Bridge?
The typical range at this station is 0.21m to 2.50m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 2.50m 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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