Beware the great Easter deluge
BRITAIN is on flood alert today with torrential rain threatening travel chaos as people head home after the Easter holiday weekend.
Almost a month’s rain is forecast in parts of southern England with wintry conditions further north.
Met Office warnings for snow are in force across northern regions with alerts for rain further south.
The Environment Agency yesterday issued 110 flood alerts and eight more serious “immediate action” warnings ahead of the deluge.
A spokesman said: “Widespread flooding is possible across parts of southern and central England and Wales later on Sunday and Monday due to heavy and persistent rain.
“This could lead to flooding of properties and widespread travel disruption. On Tuesday further localised flooding is probable.”
A low-pressure system due to sweep in from the Atlantic will dump up to three inches of rain, turning to snow over high ground in Scotland and the North.
Wintry
Met Office forecaster Helen Roberts said: “We have a system pushing in from the south-west late on Sunday and into Monday bringing a lot of rain across southern counties.
“We could see 40 to 60mm of rain fall in parts with 70mm [2.7in] possible across the moors of the southwest.
“As this system pushes north it is going to give some snow and we could see 10cm [3.9in] over high ground, there could be wintry showers to lower levels earlier in the day.
“Tuesday could see further sharp showers and on Wednesday another system moves across the south of the UK bringing more heavy rain.”
Despite the unsettled start, the country could be basking in a longawaited burst of warmer, settled conditions by the end of the week.
Temperatures could hit high double figures in some parts bringing the warmest spell of the year so far.
Ms Roberts said: “There will be some decent amounts of sunshine with largely dry conditions from Thursday when we expect to see an improvement in the weather.
“Friday is not looking bad at all as we start to see a more southerly airflow, and it could be really quite warm in parts of the country.
“We could see temperatures of 15C (59F) or 16C, and with decent sunshine temperatures could climb quite nicely.
“We could possibly see 17C or 18C as absolute maximums.”