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Real-time Rainfall Data

Publisher
Environment Agency
Updated
18 September 2026
Topic
Not set

Summary

This record is for Approval for Access product AfA501 for approximately 1000 automatic rainfall data from the Environment Agency rainfall API.

The data is available on an update cycle which varies across the country, typically updated daily but updated faster is rainfall is detected. This is update frequency is usually increased during times of flooding, etc.

Readings are transferred via telemetry to internal and external systems in or close to real-time.

Measurement of the rainfall is taken in millimetres (mm) accumulated over 15 minutes. Note that rainfall data is recorded in GMT, so during British Summer Time (BST) data may appear to be an hour old. Data comes from a network of over 1000 gauges across England. Data shown is raw data collected from the gauges and is subject to quality control procedures. As a result, values may change after publication on this website.

Continuous rainfall information is also stored on our hydrometric archive, Wiski, and can be provided in non real-time on request through our customer contact centre. This raw rainfall data is provided to the Met Office for quality control along with all the data from our registered daily storage gauges (c.1400). The quality controlled dataset is covered in AfA148 Quality Controlled Daily and Monthly Raingauge Data from Environment Agency Gauges.

Data from a small selection of Met Office raingauges are included in our open data feed. This data is also available from the Met Office as open data. Attribution statement: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2016. All rights reserved. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence

Data links

Link Format Preview Updated
Daily_Rainfall_Archive 18/9/2026
Rainfall_Linked_Data_API 18/9/2026

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Additional information

Source Metadata
XML, HTML
Date added
16 September 2026
Harvest GUID
d0ab9696-3447-41c0-863e-9818136dbb85
Extent (Latitude)
55.816° to 49.943°
Extent (Longitude)
-6.236° to 2.072°
Spatial reference system
http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/27700
Dataset reference date (creation)
2017-01-23
Dataset reference date (revision)
2021-03-12
Frequency of update
continual
Access constraints
There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.
Responsible party
Environment Agency (pointOfContact)
ISO 19139 resource type
dataset
Metadata language
eng

Contact

Enquiries

DSPcustomerforum@environment-agency.gov.uk

Freedom of information (FOI) requests

enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

Licence information

Open Government Licence