Get the brollies out: South-east to bear the brunt of thunderstorms and heavy rain

- Met office issues warning over localised flooding
Pa|Staff28 July 2013

Get those umbrellas out again - Britain's glorious spell of sunshine is about to come to an abrupt end with heavy downpours and thunderstorms.

The Met Office has issued a "yellow" warning of rain following fears that heavy showers and thunderstorms expected over France today could move north to affect south-east England and East Anglia.

And it warned some regions may be hit by localised flooding from this evening into Sunday .

The thundery weather is then expected to move north to cover large parts of England on Sunday, with as much as 30mm of rain falling in an hour in the South-east.

Sean Penston, forecaster at MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said there was "every chance" of flash flooding in areas affected by the torrential rain.

"There's a pool of warm air moving up from the continent which should arrive in the south east of England by (the) afternoon," he said.

"That will bring heavy and thundery rain across much of south-east England, before it moves in a north west direction across the Midlands, parts of east Wales and south-west England.

"This rain will keep pushing north on Sunday into northern England and Scotland. Then, moving in from the west, further showers and outbreaks of rain with the risk of thunder will affect south-west England and Wales."

The South-east will bear the brunt of the weekend's rain with as much as 30mm expected to fall within an hour, and 50mm within three hours in some places, according to the Met Office.

This compares with an average rainfall of around 80mm for the whole month of July, MeteoGroup said.

In its weather warning, the Met Office said: "Thunderstorms and areas of heavy, thundery rain are expected to move north from France during the course of Saturday afternoon and evening.

"The public should be aware of the risk of localised disruption to travel, due to surface water flooding and lightning strikes."

Temperatures will remain warm for most of the country, however, with highs between 23C to 25C for much of England today, Mr Penston said.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in