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UK weather forecast: Met Office issues flood warnings as heavy thunderstorms lash Britain

Corazon Miller

Rain, hail and lighting is expected to hit already-flooded parts of the UK bringing a renewed risk of floods, power cuts and travel disruptions.

Tuesday saw torrential rain and thunderstorms lash the country – with the worst hit areas in the southeast suffering power cuts and severe flooding.

Today, the Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning, with thunderstorms forecast to linger until later this evening around many of the same areas.

The flood-hit community of Wainfleet in Lincolnshire is within the Met Office’s warning area, but forecasters are optimistic the town will escape the worst of today’s storms.

Meteorologist Alex Burkill said: “A few showers are possible there, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to bear the brunt of the heavy downpours.”

The town has already seen around 225 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of water pumped out to sea following severe flooding last week.

Around 350 tonnes of sand and ballast were dropped in the area by RAF Chinook helicopters over the weekend.

A garden submerged by floodwater in Wainfleet, where streets and properties flooded after the town had more than two months of rain in just two days (PA)
A garden submerged by floodwater in Wainfleet, where streets and properties flooded after the town had more than two months of rain in just two days (PA)

On Tuesday, Lincolnshire Police said almost 600 homes remained evacuated as the clean-up operation continued.

Homes were left without power and roads were flooded in parts of the southeast, while Lenham in Kent saw 42mm of rain in the space of just one hour.

The Met Office said the deluge in the village, which lies between Maidstone and Ashford, came between 11pm on Tuesday and midnight.

Images and video on social media captured spectacular lightning in the skies over the region, while Kent Police’s Roads Policing Unit tweeted that the lightning was “very active”.

Eastbourne in East Sussex is said to have seen about 1,000 lightning strikes in an hour.

Rescue workers in Wainfleet after the River Steeping breached its banks (PA)
Rescue workers in Wainfleet after the River Steeping breached its banks (PA)

Other parts of the country will see a much brighter day on Wednesday, with sunshine expected in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The rest of England and Wales could see a damp start, before things brighten up later in the day.

The weekend is also set to bring some respite from the recent downpours, with temperatures rising to as high as 23C (73F).

Additional reporting by Press Association