Aire and Calder catchment
• Oulton • West Yorkshire • ID: F1715 • Level
(36m ago) • 4 readings/hr • 141 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
0.090 m
▬ Steady
24h Max
0.124 m
24h Min
0.090 m
Typical Range
0.09 - 0.50
m
Highest Recorded
0.91 m
EA official record
0.91 in our data (since Nov 1986)
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.
Flow Data: Daily mean flow (m³/s) to 8 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.
2 storm overflows are traced upstream of this gauge, the nearest 6.7 km away along the river. 0 report discharging now, 2 report not discharging.
Yorkshire Water · into Ashfield Beck · 5.2 km away in a straight line · its watercourse is not on the river map
39 spills · 126 hours in 2025
Status unknown — the live feed has not updated for 10 d 2 h
14 more within 6 km whose connection is not known.
26 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 Oulton flood history.
Flood areas linked to this gauge
Flood warnings and alerts are issued for whole areas. These are the 4 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
0.54
mixed response
Avg Annual Rainfall
709 mm/yr
1991–2020 · +8% since 1941–70
Urban Extent
22%
heavily urbanised
Median Annual Flood
2.55 m³/s
QMED — typical yearly peak flow
Highest Daily Mean Flow
5.16 m³/s
25 Jun 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.
Land Cover (2023)
Woodland 6%Grassland 28%Arable 25%Urban 41%
Arable 46% → 25% since 1990
Photos
Gauging-station photographs from the National River Flow Archive (UKCEH).
Flat-V weir. Catchment highly urbanised and industrialised.
More detail
The catchment
A small, relatively low-lying impervious (Coal Measures) catchment with significant urban/suburban development on the periphery of Leeds. Catchment is traversed by both the M1 and M62. Increasing urbanisation during period of record.
The station
Flat-V weir, 5m wide (1:10 cross-slope) in steep-sided, straight channel. No cableway. May be subject to accretion and bank encroachment but well maintained and should not affect high flow ratings.
How it measures flow
High concrete wing-walls prevent bypassing. Substantial modular range, drops away quickly over a cascade of weirs downstream of the gauge. Downstream level recorder suggests station remains modular in all events. One peak flow rating applied across period of record. Theoretical rating with current meter check gaugings from bridge.
Flow regime
Stormwater drainage in part of the catchment but very few abstractions or discharges. An outfall draining a large urban area joins the beck just downstream of the station.
The flow record
Full period of record peak flow data reviewed and released in September 2020 (WINFAP Files v9).
Timing, not cause. Gauges can move together simply because the same rain fell on both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Oulton Beck at Farrer Lane flooding today?
The current level is 0.09m, which is within the typical range of 0.09 to 0.50m. Flooding is unlikely at this level.
Is the river level rising or falling at Farrer Lane?
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 Oulton Beck at Farrer Lane?
The typical range at this station is 0.09m to 0.50m, based on Environment Agency historical data. Levels above 0.50m 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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Cabinets
Downstream gaugeboard and cabinet
Weir, stilling basin and downstream channel
Upstream gaugeboard and cabinet