Tame Anker and Mease catchment
• Sheepwash, Tipton • West Midlands • ID: 4101 • Level
(36m ago) • 3 readings/hr • 160 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
0.278 mASD
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.329 mASD
24h Min
0.277 mASD
Typical Range
0.29 - 2.66
mASD
Highest Recorded
2.83 mASD
EA official record
2.83 in our data (since Oct 1985)
Current level is 10% 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.
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.
4 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 2.5 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 4 report not discharging.
Severn Trent Water · into Hobnail Brook · 3.0 km away in a straight line · its watercourse is not on the river map
0 spills · 0 hours in 2025
Not discharging now
32 more within 6 km whose connection is not known.
22 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 Sheepwash, Tipton flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 18 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
775 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +4% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
81%
heavily urbanised
Highest Daily Mean Flow
10.28 m³/s
20 Jul 2007 · 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 used for flood warning purposes and a time of travel pollution assessment point. Key reservoir site.
More detail
The catchment
Heavy urbanised.
The station
Velocity area station commissioned in October 1985 to measure levels on the uppermost reaches of the River Tame in the Tipton and Oldbury area. River heads northwest from its source at Oldbury towards West Bromwich and the next flow station at Bescot. Gauge house replaced in July 2012 following vandalism in June 2010 (station closed between this period). Either side of the channel are two large balancing lakes which act as a flood storage area.
How it measures flow
Channel is a uniform concrete flume with a trapezoidal cross-section. High level gaugings problematic due to rapid response times following heavy rainfall. The channel is generally silt free with no or very minimal weed growth.
Flow regime
Flashy regime owing to the highly urbanised catchment and high levels of surface run-off.
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Tame at Sheepwash flooding today?
The current level is 0.28m, which is below the typical range. Flooding is very unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Sheepwash?
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 River Tame at Sheepwash?
The typical range at this station is 0.29m to 2.66m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 2.66m 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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