Swathes of Britain face a ‘shock’ as they braced today for heavy rain, flooding and thunderstorms after temperatures fell below freezing and a cold snap moved in.
Hefty downpours started affecting London last night, with Victoria Station on the London Underground partly closed today due to flooding. Eastbound Circle and District line trains were not stopping at the station during the morning rush hour.
Tube passenger Martin O’Keefe tweeted this morning: ‘I don’t know how this godforsaken country ever thought it could deliver HS2 when the UK’s current rail infrastructure won’t even allow half the trains on the Circle and District Line to stop at London Victoria due to flooding. Absolutely pathetic.’
Almost three inches of rain could fall in parts of southern England and Wales over today and tomorrow, with the Met Office warning of possible travel delays.
A yellow weather warning for rain was imposed over all of southern England, the West Midlands and the whole of Wales over 9 pm tonight until the end of tomorrow, with up to 1.2in (30mm) in two hours and 2.8in (70mm) over the 27 hour period.
Early this morning, the mercury dipped to -2C (28F) at Katesbridge in Northern Ireland and -1C (30F) at Eskdalemuir in Scotland, where snow on the mountains is likely in the coming days, as well as a widespread overnight frost across the United Kingdom.
This weekend, lows of -3C (27F) in Scotland and Northern Ireland could lead to air frosts while cities of England will drop to 2C (36F), potentially colder in rural locations.
It comes after Britain enjoyed its longest run of consecutive October days above 25C (77F) since 1959, with four recorded between Saturday and Tuesday. Sunday was the UK’s warmest October day in five years as temperatures hit 25.8C (78.4F) in London.
Met Office spokesman Grahame Madge said: ‘On Wednesday night, there may potentially be some frosts and much colder than average conditions, which might be a shock for northern parts of Britain because we’ve had this relatively warm air across most of the UK.
‘There will be an increasing tendency towards cooler conditions, however, in the southern parts of England and Wales, we’ve got the prospect of heavy rain coming in.
‘We’re saying there is a significant rain warning from 9 pm on Thursday through to midnight on Friday, and we can expect 20mm (0.8in) to 30mm (1.2in) in some places in a couple of hours.
‘Even up to 50mm (2in), 60mm (2.4in) or possibly up to 70mm (2.8in) across the high ground of Wales, these are significant amounts.
It’s the weather and it’s autumn and nothing to worry about. People will just get on with their lives.
A cold snap, are you joshing me? In Britain? In October? What next? Bananas growing in the tropics? Shock, horror, it’s autumn, what did they expect, tropical sunshine? But then it’s the power-crazy Met Office. Unless there’s going to be a tornado, why are they giving us these weather alerts? I’m sure I could acquire my own conclusions from a weather map.
For goodness sake, it’s called rain, and a bit of rain never harmed anybody. Unless it’s in Wales, then it could potentially be a problem.
Perhaps if you were in Cambodia where they have heavy downpours and thunderstorms, that might make a difference, but even so, life carries on as normal. The United Kingdom has advanced technology but still constantly fails its people.
Considering what’s happening in the world right now, our weather doesn’t actually matter one bit.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 