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Heatwave for some, flash floods for others
Parts of the UK are braced for flash floods as the heatwave that has swept much of the country in the past week comes to a dramatic end in some areas.
- The Guardian
- Published: 22:48 July 2, 2009
London: Parts of the UK are braced for flash floods as the heatwave that has swept much of the country in the past week comes to a dramatic end in some areas.
After one of the hottest weeks in years, northeast England was hit by torrential thunderstorms on Thursday with the Environment Agency warning that south Wales and southwest England would also be hit by flash floods.
The Met Office continued to warn of very hot weather in other areas of the country however, the very high temperatures that were expected on Thursday in the southeast will drop at the weekend.
Nigel Bolton, forecaster at the Met Office, said that temperatures would remain well above average in the southeast.
"We will still see very high temperatures today [Thursday], up to 32C in Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire. The average temperature for this time of year is around 23C, though we are unlikely to see record temperatures, which reached 36C in both 1976 and 2003." The country remains at heatwave level three.
Areas further north would also see high temperatures with Glasgow likely to register 26-27C while some areas of the highlands would see temperatures up to 28-29C, he said.
The west of the country looked likely to see very different weather, however.
"In the southwest, Wales, parts of Ireland and central and western Scotland we will see scattered heavy thunderstorms, and some localised torrential downpours, with up to 25-30 millimetres of rainfall in an hour and large hail in some places," he said.
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