River Levels App

Resident Jim Brown writes …

When the road to Clifton Hampden floods it can be a real pain for local residents, forcing us to find another much longer route round.  And, in recent years this has become a more common affair.

Sometimes the water only just covers the road and is still passable, but when the flood is deep enough to prevent traffic, some drivers still take the gamble…

It’s difficult to know how deep the water is until it’s too late, and even then you have to contend with oncoming vehicles making their own waves.

But I recently found an app that could make our lives much easier.

RiverApp is designed for canoeists to monitor river conditions around the world in order to plan their trips.  It uses data from the Environment Agency who have ‘gauges’ setup all across the country to record river levels and flow rates.

But the most useful bit for us might be the Alarms section: you can set alerts based on the river levels at any gauge you like, and there happens to be one right at Clifton Lock.

Last night the rain has caused the river level to rise and as it did I kept an eye on the water levels in the app.  When Clifton Lock reports a level of:

1.30m: the river is very high, but not yet on the road
1.31m: the water is across half the road, but avoidable
1.32m: the water covers the whole width of the road, but is still passable
1.33m: Road Flooded

At 1.33m I was still able to drive through the water in my SUV as long as I kept to the middle and avoided the edges, but I wouldn’t have risked it in a smaller car.

So, instead of driving to the wrong end of the village just to find the Road Closed sign, or even worse, there being no sign and you reach an impassable flood with nowhere to turn around why not set the app to alert you at a river level that suits your vehicle.

Or maybe you’re a BMW driver who likes to gamble.  You know what happened last time!!

(Disclaimer: please use this information at your own risk!  If in doubt set the alerts to 1.31m to always avoid any water on the road.)

Download RiverApp screenshots.

RiverApp for Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.android.riverapp

RiverApp for iOS:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/riverapp-river-levels/id667012473

Stop Press 1st October 2024

It seems the numbers above might be a bit conservative!

Over the past few days I’ve been keeping an eye on the river levels and while the gauge is still reporting about 1.33m the water is only just on one side of the road.

I checked the gauge levels from back in January when the road was properly flooded and 1.4m looks to be a better sign of the road being under water.

Either way, if you’re using the RiverApp for alerts then you can choose a level you’re comfortable with. I think I’ll stick with 1.35m for now.