West Ealing has little to fear from rivers and a fair amount to think about when it rains hard. Hardly any of it is in the river flood zones. About one postcode in seven carries a high flag once surface water is counted. No past flood is on record. It's a puddle problem, and a puddle can still get into a kitchen.
On the Environment Agency's river-and-sea mapping, about 2% of West Ealing's postcodes are in Flood Zone 2 and 0.3% in Flood Zone 3. The two zones don't overlap. Zone 3 is the higher-probability core, and Zone 2 is the medium-probability fringe beyond it. Counting homes and other buildings, the Agency lists 463 properties across 18 postcodes with some river-or-sea risk. None is at high risk, 30 are at medium and 395 are at low. For a district with no river running through its middle, that is close to what anyone would hope for.
Surface water is where the risk sits. When heavy rain falls faster than the drains on the Uxbridge Road and the side streets can carry it away, it pools in the low spots, and a map of river zones won't show it. The old hamlet here was called Ealing Dean, a name that may come from an old word for valley. Low ground in a valley collects whatever falls on it.
The Environment Agency's climate-adjusted mapping puts about 2.5% of postcodes in its flood zones once projected change is allowed for. That's a modelled look ahead from the present zones, and it barely moves the river picture.
For insurance, most West Ealing homes outside the flagged postcodes should be routine to cover. A home in a flagged postcode can face more questions from an insurer and a higher premium, and a basement flat in a converted Edwardian house sits lower than most. Put the exact address into the Environment Agency's long-term flood risk check and read the surface-water result, which is the line that applies here, and get an insurance quote while the purchase can still change.
On indicators that count any of several measures, surface water included, about 15% of West Ealing's postcodes rate high on at least one, about 17% medium and about 41% low. Those shares are much bigger than the river-zone figures, and the gap between them is the rain. The selling line about being outside the flood zones can be true here and still miss the water most likely to cause a problem.
In the Environment Agency's model, 0.3% of postcodes fall in the high-probability extent with no defences in place, and the same 0.3% with defences in place. Whatever defences the model includes make no difference to those few postcodes. A defence in a model only means the defence exists. It doesn't mean a particular house stays dry.
The nearest tide gauge is at Portsmouth, where sea level rose by about 2 millimetres a year over its record from 1962 to 2023. That gauge is a long way from West Ealing, and the sea has never been West Ealing's problem.
No flooding is on record for West Ealing. That's reassuring, though a short record of an absence can't prove a flood has never happened.
West Ealing's flood risk is middling. Rivers barely trouble it, but rain on low ground does, and that is what decides whether a particular home is safe.