Valentine’s Day is set to be a damp squid with yet more heavy rain on its way across the UK.
The Met Office warns that we have another weather system crossing the UK on Friday 14th February bringing further heavy rain and very strong winds, leading to a number of weather warnings being put in place. The rain could turn to snow over the hills and mountains in northern England and Scotland.
The rain will push into the UK from the southwest during Friday morning, moving quickly north eastwards. Following the rain areas of organised showers will push across England and Wales, adding to the rainfall accumulations in places.
There are Yellow weather warnings for wind in place for the South coast and round into East Anglia with an Amber weather warning for wind along the South coast. We are expecting some gusts of around 60 miles per hour inland and perhaps 80 miles per hour in exposed areas along the coast itself. With these very strong winds large waves will push onto the coastline with dangerous conditions possible as well as some localised coastal flooding.
We also have both Yellow and Amber weather warnings for rain in place across parts of the southern half of the UK and Wales. We are expecting 15 to 25 millimetres of rain widely across the south within in the Yellow warning area, with 40mm possible in places within the Amber warning area (parts of Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Plymouth, Torbay).
The rain could fall as snow over the higher ground from Wales northwards and perhaps to lower levels for a time in Northern Ireland and western Scotland. Ground above 250 – 300 metres could see between 2-5cms of snow, with up to 10cms expected over higher routes. With strong winds some difficult travel conditions are possible.
With very wet ground conditions in Wales and the south of England and following repeated heavy rainfall earlier in the week there is the potential for further flooding in places. The rain will clear away from these most sensitive areas during Saturday morning.
John Hope, Emergency Planning Manager for the Highways Agency NW region said “Met Office warnings were invaluable in planning response to the impact of the extremely high winds on Wednesday and we would urge everyone to keep an eye on the Met Office website when deciding what to do for Friday”.
The impacts from this rainfall may continue on some rivers on subsequent days and further information may be found by visiting the Environment Agency website or by calling the Environment Agency Floodline.
“We advise everyone to stay up to date with Met Office Severe weather warnings and the latest details from our UK forecast during this continuing unsettled weather.”
© Met Office
