Arun and Western Streams catchment
• Hardham • West Sussex • ID: E29202 • Level
(24m ago) • 1 reading/hr • 163 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 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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Current Level
0.212 mASD
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.222 mASD
24h Min
0.207 mASD
Typical Range
0.21 - 2.25
mASD
Highest Recorded
2.93 mASD
24 Dec 2013
Since Oct 1982
Current level is 7% of this
🚽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 22:45▲ +0.1 cm0.212 mASD
23 Aug 21:30▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 21:15▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 21:00▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 20:45▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 20:30▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 20:15▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 20:00▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 19:45▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 19:30▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 19:15▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 19:00▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 18:45▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 18:30▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 18:15▬ steady0.211 mASD
23 Aug 18:00▲ +0.1 cm0.211 mASD
23 Aug 17:45▬ steady0.210 mASD
23 Aug 17:30▬ steady0.210 mASD
23 Aug 17:15▼ -0.1 cm0.210 mASD
23 Aug 17:000.211 mASD
Rainfall & Weather
Loading rainfall and weather data...
Flood history near this gauge
Official Environment Agency warnings issued since 2012 for the 6 flood
areas linked to this gauge (nearest 1.4 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 Hardham 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
🌊 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
0.67
groundwater-fed — slow & steady
Avg Annual Rainfall
980 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +7% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
2.3%
largely rural
Highest Recorded Flow
71.10 m³/s
16 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.
Compound Crump weir and flood gate (installed in 1982) superseded a broad-crested weir.
More detail
The station
Lower Crump section acts as fish pass and flood gate is rarely used.
How it measures flow
Water can back-up from downstream confluence of Rother and Arun, causing station to drown at 16 cumecs or less (dependent on tide level). River also goes out of bank over adjacent fields at such flows. High flows extrapolated from Velocity-Area station at Fittleworth ~3km upstream.
Flow regime
Abstractions for public water supply (offtake is immediately upstream); minor spray irrigation impact.
The flow record
Flows truncated at ~16 cumecs since 1982 due to backwater and drowned weir conditions. No data on National River Flow Archive 1977-82.
How this gauging station is built and how long it has measured (NRFA / UKCEH).
Gauge type
Gauging structure
Operating since
1959
Station datum
3.9 mAOD
Flow record
1959–2024 · 65 yrs · 91% complete
Hydrometric area
41
Measured by
Environment Agency
Nearby Groundwater
Soil Moisture
Possible storm-overflow correlation
🚽 Storm overflows on this river
Frequently asked questions
Is the River Rother at Hardham flooding today?
The current level is 0.21m, which is within the typical range of 0.21 to 2.25m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Hardham?
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 Rother at Hardham?
The typical range at this station is 0.21m to 2.25m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 2.25m 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.
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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:
