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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 mASD/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 data and are best-efforts. Terms
Current Level
0.125 mASD
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.132 mASD
24h Min
0.123 mASD
Typical Range
0.18 - 2.10
mASD
Highest Recorded
2.54 mASD
24 Dec 2013
Since Sep 2005
Current level is 5% of this
Current Flow
Loading...
🚽Sewage overflows nearby
Recent Water Levels
🌍 floodradar.co.uk
1 day
Prediction V2
Prediction Eris
Nimbus beta
Experimental model fusing soil moisture, river flow, groundwater and catchment
character. Shown with its calibrated 10–90% confidence band. 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.
Long Term
🌍 floodradar.co.uk
—
Consecutive rainy days0 → 10+
Days Above Normal
This year vs 5-year monthly range
Recent Readings
Steady over 6h
23 Aug 23:15▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 23:00▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 22:45▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 21:30▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 21:15▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 21:00▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 20:45▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 20:30▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 20:15▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 20:00▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 19:45▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 19:30▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 19:15▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 19:00▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 18:45▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 18:30▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 18:15▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 18:00▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 17:45▬ steady0.125 mASD
23 Aug 17:300.125 mASD
Rainfall & Weather
Loading rainfall and weather data...
Flood history near this gauge
Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2012 for the 13 flood
areas linked to this gauge (nearest 1.2 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 Charlwood flood history.
Geographic coordinates may reflect the access point for the gauge, and not the precise location in the watercourse that it is taking readings from.
Catchment Character
🌊 Fairly flashyResponds fairly quickly to rain, with moderate baseflow between events.
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
851 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +3% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
14%
partly urbanised
Median Annual Flood
10.38 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Recorded Flow
17.40 m³/s
15 Sep 1968
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 18%Grassland 45%Arable 10%Urban 27%
Grassland 56% → 45% since 1990
Flow affected by: public water supply, effluent returns.
Photos
Gauging-station photographs from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).
Ultrasonic station gauging an impervious catchment with some urban land use.
More detail
The catchment
Impervious (Weald Clay) catchment; mostly rural but heavy urban development in the eastern third.
The station
Since 2005, an ultrasonic station 200m downstream of original station - rectangular flume (2.74m broad) in culvert below airport runway plus Crump weir in overflow channel (built in 1984, and appears to influence the homogeneity of the flow record). Station added to peak flows dataset in September 2022 (WINFAP Files v11).
How it measures flow
Six-path ultrasonic gauge, replacing four-path gauge in September 2019.
Flow regime
Very limited disturbance to the responsive, natural flow regime (Gatwick Airport is not in the catchment); small net export of water.
The flow record
Ran dry for the first time in summer of 1995. Four-path gauge failed in 2016, no data available until re-opening in September 2019. Multiple years rejected in the Peak Flow Dataset due to missing data.
How this gauging station is built and how long it has measured (NRFA / UKCEH).
Gauge type
Ultrasonic
Operating since
1961
Station datum
56.7 mAOD
Flow record
1961–2024 · 63 yrs · 89% complete
Peak-flow record
since 1986
Hydrometric area
39
Measured by
Environment Agency
Nearby Groundwater
Soil Moisture
Possible storm-overflow correlation
🚽 Storm overflows on this river
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Mole at Gatwick Airport flooding today?
The current level is 0.13m, which is below the typical range. Flooding is very unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Gatwick Airport?
Based on the most recent readings, the level is currently steady. The chart above shows the last 7 days of measurements, updated roughly every 15 minutes.
What is a normal level for the River Mole at Gatwick Airport?
The typical range at this station is 0.18m to 2.10m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 2.10m are higher than usually seen and may indicate a flood risk.
How often is this river level data updated?
Readings are taken by the Environment Agency gauge roughly every 15 minutes and FloodRadar refreshes its data continuously, so the level shown is normally less than an hour old.
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:
May 1985 Original channel (now only low/medium flows)
May 1985 Approach channel
May 1985 High flow channel
