Rain and hill snow to renew flood threat in parts of UK hard-hit by Storm Chandra

Flooding is continuing to bring disruption in the aftermath of Storm Chandra, especially to parts of south-west England.

At the peak, three rare 'danger to life' severe flood warnings were in place.

Whilst conditions for many communities may have eased, Met Office yellow rain warnings have been issued for the coming days and into the weekend.

The start of next week is looking very wet too.

A yellow rain warning has been issued by the Met Office for southwest England, valid 12:00 to 23:59 Thursday, 10-15mm of rain will fall widely with up to 25mm over hills.

This is about one third of the rainfall that Storm Chandra brought, so whilst not as heavy could cause further problems or at the very least, delay the draining of the flood waters we already have, causing ongoing disruption.

There is a second yellow rain warning for southwest England, valid 09:00 Friday to 06:00 Saturday, 10-20mm of rain will fall widely with up to 30mm over hills. The start of next week looks very wet too, so further flooding problems are possible.

The a third yellow rain warning has been issued for Northern Ireland, valid 00:00 to 18:00 Friday, 10-25mm of rain will fall widely with up to 60mm over hills. This is likely to cause some flooding with localised disruption with rain falling on saturated ground.

Storm Chandra brought some very heavy rain, in less than 24 hours southwest England widely recorded 40-70mm, around half a month's worth of rain. Dartmoor had the heaviest rain with White Barrow recording 105mm.

Flooding has been especially widespread and disruptive because the ground was already saturated, many areas of the UK have had a very wet month. Parts of southern England have had double the January average rainfall and White Barrow in Dartmoor has recorded nearly half a metre of rain.

Northern Ireland and east Scotland have also seen huge falls of rain this month with some areas recording well over triple the January average rainfall with some flooding problems also reported.

Rain is likely to turn to hill snow across the Pennines and Scottish Southern Uplands on Thursday night and into Friday morning.

Around 2-7cm of snow looks likely above 200m elevation bringing icy conditions and a threat of localised disruption.

It will be worth checking road conditions over higher routes such as A57 Snake Pass, A628, M62, A66 and A7 before heading out on any journeys.