Floodline

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He said: "It's moving down reasonably well, but as so much of it is due to a great deal of surface water running off, our main rivers are running fairly full, some extremely full.

"We are hoping that things will become better, but it all depends."

The average rainfall for the entire month of October fell in less than twenty-four hours over the weekend.

The Environment Agency said about 250 properties were flooded.

Environment Agency regional flood watch manager Jonathan Wortley said: "The biggest problems for us are in the Braintree area, where we had 60-70mm of rain.

"Now it is getting into the tributaries and we are getting people flooded as a result of upper areas of rivers flooding."

Rescue services inundated

Hundreds of roads in Essex are affected by flooding and police are advising drivers to take extra care on stretches with surface water.

An Essex Police spokesman said: "The emergency services have been busy through the night and remain busy today.

"We were notified of around 200 roads that were affected by flooding and we are urging drivers to take care."

A number of roads were closed on Sunday in Essex and Cambridgeshire.

Flood warnings

3 severe flood warnings - 2 in Essex, 1 in Cambridgeshire 13 flood warnings - 8 in Essex, 3 in Leicestershire, 1 in Suffolk, 1 in Cambridge

There were hundreds of calls to rescue services in several counties, and some residents were issued with sandbags.

Between 50mm and 60mm of rain fell in parts of Kent, Essex and Cambridgeshire, with nearly 70mm in the Braintree area of Essex in just six hours on Sunday.

The Met Office said this was close to the normal rainfall for the whole of October.

Traffic for Stansted Airport had to queue on the M11 motorway on Sunday as minor roads and the airport approach road were flooded.

Last year's widespread flooding resulted from days of exceptionally heavy rain and caused damage costing millions of pounds.