Following a month's worth of rain in the last week across the south and further rain Saturday & Monday, the risk of flooding will continue this weekend. But high pressure by Christmas Day with bring a drier respite
There are currently 69 Flood Warnings, mostly across southern and eastern counties of England, and 215 Flood Alerts across England. The number has been rising through the day following prolonged rain overnight and through the morning.
Some areas of southern England have seen over a month’s worth of rain fall over the past week. In the last few days a few locations in Cornwall have seen over 50mm (2 inches) fall in 36 hours. The town of Hayle in the county saw numerous properties flooded yesterday following a spell of torrential rain falling on saturated ground after back to back days of rainfall.
Further east across southern England there was travel disruption yesterday across Dorset and Hampshire, with flooded roads, flooding in the New Forest and other parts of Hampshire and a landslip near Portsmouth disrupting or blocking train services. Following prolonged rainfall overnight, parts of Sussex have seen over 20mm of rain fall in the last 12 hours, with Charlwood near Gatwick seeing 43mm in the last 48 hours. The M23 near Crawley in West Sussex was closed both ways for much of the morning, due to water pouring off adjacent flooded fields – causing large tailbacks and slow traffic on surrounding roads. Also there has been severe disruption on the main London to Brighton railway line from flooding.
Although persistent rain has mostly cleared southern England with just a few showers around, another spell of rain is forecast to move across southern England Saturday from late afternoon and through the evening. With river levels high and the extra rain - further flooding with disruption to road and rain is likely over the weekend across parts of southern England, in what is expected to be a busy travel period just before Christmas.
It’s not just southern England at risk from flooding, quite a few rivers across the Midlands and eastern England also have flood warnings and numerous flood alerts, and the number will probably increase today thanks to persistent rainfall across these areas this morning and into the afternoon. There are also 5 Flood Warnings across Scotland, while in Wales there are 2 Flood Warnings and 7 Flood Alerts, mostly across the far east.
More rain over next few days for the south from 2 systems on Saturday PM and Monday PM
Another area of rain associated with a low moving east off the Atlantic could clip southern England later on Monday, with showers following on Tuesday, so the threat of flooding may not be over after the weekend.
However, it looks like drying up on Christmas Day, as a ridge of high pressure nudges up from France during the day. With winds turning to the northwest Christmas Eve bringing in colder polar air and skies clearing overnight into Christmas Day as pressure builds, many places could start off cold and frosty on Christmas Day. The big day remaining mostly dry and bright or sunny, but on the chilly side. Just a low chance for now that it may turn wet and windy across Ireland and N. Ireland later in the day.
Some uncertainty whether the ridge of high pressure which builds in for Christmas Day hangs around or retreats thereafter. But the jet stream, which has been tracking unusually far south across France recently, looks to shift its track further north across the north of Britain after Christmas, so low pressure systems will be diverted further to the north and west of Britain, with recent model ensemble runs indicating high pressure could stay over or nearby the UK in the run up to the New Year, though always the potential that the northwest, closer to low pressure, will perhaps turn unsettled at times.
