Heavy rain may cause flooding over the weekend, Met Office warns

Parts of the UK could be facing flooding and travel disruption due to heavy rain over the weekend, the Met Office has warned.

A number of weather warnings have been issued across parts of England, Scotland and Wales from Friday until Sunday due to heavy rain.

The Met Office said some areas could expect 25-50mm.

But Met Office senior meteorologist Marco Petagna said that areas within an amber weather warning in south Wales could see 200mm of rain, twice the normal rainfall for February.

He added: “We are looking at one or two inches of rain (25-50mm). Some areas where these warnings are in force we could see 100mm, that’s four inches.

“For the amber warning, potentially up to 200mm, that’s twice the normal February rainfall.”

Natural Resources Wales issued 30 flood alerts and one flood warning on Friday, while the Environment Agency issued five flood warnings and 80 flood alerts for England.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency issued 22 flood warnings and nine flood alerts.

The amber weather warning is in force across parts of south Wales from 8pm on Friday until 6pm on Saturday, with heavy and persistent rain expected to cause some flooding and disruption to transport and utilities.

Yellow weather warnings are also in place across large parts of west and south Wales, parts of west, south-west and central Scotland from Friday until Sunday, parts of Devon and Cornwall from Friday to Saturday and parts of Cumbria on Saturday.

Mr Petagna said that the east of the country will have a much quieter weekend with mild temperatures up to 16C in the south-east, but with light and patchy rain on Sunday.

However, he warned that after a brief break in the rain there was more wet weather due next week.

He added: “There’s more rain to come going into next week.

“There will be some respite Sunday and Monday but going into Tuesday there’s some more rainfall.

“Again the west and north-west could see further rain developing.”