Thursday, December 26, 2013

UK braced for more storms and floods

Haroon Siddique in the Guardian (UK):  Weather forecasters are warning that 80mph winds and blustery showers could cause further significant flooding in parts of England on Thursday as more than 10,000 properties remain without power.

About 1,000 homes in south-east and south-west England have already been flooded and at one stage 300,000 properties in the south-east, the east of England and London had no electricity as bad weather threw many people's Christmas celebrations into chaos.

The Met Office said widespread gales were likely to develop late during Thursday night or in the early hours of Friday morning bringing gusts of more than 50mph inland and of 70mph to 80mph to some coastal areas and high ground.

Helen Roberts, a forecaster from the Met Office, said: "The storm will push in from the west overnight, bringing wet and windy weather to much of the UK. There will be very strong gales inland at times and severe gales on the western coast.

"There will be about 10-20mm of rain for many areas, possibly 25mm in some locations. This is not a huge amount of rain but because it will be falling on very saturated land, even relatively small amounts of rain could cause further problems."...

Sunset over the flooded Ouse Washes in 2009, shot by Richard Humphrey, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

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