Get notified about Westy — 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:m
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
3.584 m
▼ Falling (-2cm/hr)
24h Max
3.771 m
24h Min
3.584 m
Typical Range
3.55 - 4.14
m
Highest Recorded
5.54 m
EA official record
5.91 in our data (since Mar 1989)
Current level is 65% of this
Current Flow
Loading...
🚽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.
181 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge. 0 report discharging now, 170 report not discharging, and for 11 the monitor is offline or has not reported, so their status is not known.
United Utilities · into Manchester Ship Canal · 2.5 km away in a straight line · discharges into a canal
9 spills · 10 hours in 2025
Not discharging now · last
21 more within 6 km whose connection is not known.
6 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 4.14 m
on about 76 days.
This year so far: 26 days.
202626 days so far
202566 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
202496 days, 6 of them high · 6 high
2023119 days, 4 of them high · 4 high
202261 days, 14 of them high · 14 highpatchy data
202181 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
202075 days, 6 of them high · 6 high
201960 days, 2 of them high · 2 high
201839 days, 2 of them high · 2 high
201773 days, 1 of them high · 1 high
Counted from each day's highest reading. Days with missing or implausible readings are left out, so a year marked patchy may have run high more often than shown.
The darker part is days above 4.76 m, the level this gauge tops only a few days a year.
Flood history near this gauge
Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2008 for the 24 flood
areas linked to this gauge (nearest 0.3 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 Westy flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 24 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
0.44
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
1,128 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +6% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
17%
heavily urbanised
Highest Daily Mean Flow
214 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.
Flow affected by: surface-water abstraction, public water supply, groundwater abstraction, effluent returns, industrial / agricultural abstraction.
About this gauge
Ultrasonic multi cross path station which replaced the downstream site of Howley, upgraded to velocity index in 2017.
More detail
The catchment
Large catchment containing much of Manchester. The main tributaries arise on peat moorlands to W and N of Manchester. High ground mostly Millstone Grit or Coal Measures. The centre and south of the catchment is underlain by Sherwood Sandstones and Mercia mudstones blanketed by Boulder Clay, terrace gravels and lowland peat. Diverse catchment, extensively urbanised.
The station
Ultrasonic, multipath, cross path station replacing an earlier unsatisfactory site at Howley (1.5km d/s). Numerous equipment faults, failed 2015 and replaced by index velocity sidelooker in Nov 2017.
How it measures flow
Experiences abstraction, augmentation, tidal influence and regulation. Runoff probably substantially modified, at least temporally.
Flow regime
Flow comprises Ship Canal overflow only; flows need to be combined with an ultrasonic site on the Ship Canal at Latchford, Warrington, available from the Environment Agency. Latchford flows understood to be of good quality although the record is short (1997-2002) and no gaugings are available for validation.
The flow record
Limited reliability of ultrasonics, significant gaps in flow record. Out of use 27/02/2007 to 25/06/2008 whilst being upgraded. Equipment failure 19/11/2008 to 18/03/2009, 20/04/2010 to 26/08/2012 and ultimately 19/04/2015. Anomalous and missing data in 2013 due to repair works on Manchester Ship Canal. Sidelooker installed Nov 2017, some gaps when affected by weed (e.g. May to Sept 2018). Positioned lower in the water for 2019. Anomaly around 01/06/2020 due to repairs at Howley weir sluices. Data not held from 17/03/2022 to 30/09/2022 because of the impact of instrument failures and sluice management on data quality. Outage from 10/06/2023 to 26/07/2023 due to lightning.
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Mersey at Westy flooding today?
The current level is 3.58m, which is within the typical range of 3.55 to 4.14m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Westy?
Based on the most recent readings, the level is currently falling. 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 7.6mm 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 River Mersey at Westy?
The typical range at this station is 3.55m to 4.14m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 4.14m 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