UK weather: Met Office warns of heavy rain to drench Britain all weekend – sparking floods & travel chaos
HEAVY rain will drench most of Britain this weekend – with the Met Office warning of floods and travel chaos.
Over 4mm of rain is expected to fall every hour in parts of the West Country, Midlands, North Wales and northern England.
The downpours – pushing in from the Atlantic – have seen a yellow warning for rain rolled out across the whole of England and Wales.
This is in place from 3pm on Saturday right through to 6pm on Sunday, the Met Office said.
Disruption to bus and train services should be expected and journey times will take longer.
Spray and flooding on road are also likely to impact travel plans and lead to disruption.
There could be some interruption to power supplies and other services.
The Met Office’s Alex Burkill warned of “persistent” rain to roll into Britain from this afternoon.
He added: “As we go through this morning, some sunshine across parts of eastern England and across north eastern parts of Scotland too.
“Though many areas turning increasingly cloudy as we go through the day. That cloud bringing some outbreaks of drizzly rain.
“However, it is later on where we see that other system I mentioned earlier, bringing some heavy, persistent rain initially across Northern Ireland.
“But then pushing into parts of Scotland, England an Wales.”
Despite this weekend’s downpours, temperatures will remain mild.
There will be highs of 14C in London and Manchester, 13C in Newcastle and 12C in Belfast
Tonight will remain mostly cloudy but dry but a large band of rain is expected to sweep in from the west overnight.
It will be a damp start to Sunday with continued rainfall across England and Wales.
Sunday will be another mild day with highs of 15C in London, 14C in Manchester and 11C in Edinburgh.
Flooding impacted large swathes of Britain on Friday as rivers burst their banks and towns were cut off.
Extraordinary pictures showed the River Nene in Cambs burst its banks, cutting off the village Whittlesey from Peterborough & Thorney.
In Chalfont St Giles, Bucks, water levels rose so high fields were flooded and some roads cut off.
Pictures from Thursday showed the town of St Ives, Cambs, made an island when the River Great Ouse breached its banks.
Meanwhile the historic market town of Wallingford, Oxon, was submerged after the River Thames breached its banks.