Storm havoc gives way to weekend of sunshine and showers

After close to a month's rain was dumped on parts of the South East in 24 hours a quieter weekend of sunshine and showers is on the cards.

Powerful thunderstorms washed the record-breaking heatwave away on Friday, wreaking havoc across the Home Counties, Greater London and East Anglia.

Schools were closed, buildings flooded and a train derailed near Watford Junction after hitting a landslip caused by "exceptionally" torrential rain.

However conditions will be calmer over the coming days and typical of this time of year, Met Office forecaster Mark Wilson said.

"The weather we've seen this week has been pretty unusual. It's not unheard of by any means, but the reason we had such high rainfall is because we had a period of such warm conditions that culminated in significant thunderstorms and downpours.

"There is a much quieter weekend on the cards which is good news and temperatures will be back to where they should be - in the high teens and low 20s.

"There will be some rain though western parts on Sunday, but compare to what we have seen it will be far less."

Between 10pm on Thursday and 10pm on Friday 57.4mm rainfall was recorded at Santon Downham, Suffolk, approaching the 70mm average rainfall for the whole of September.

Over the weekend it will be cloudy for many but mostly dry with some sunny spells.

On Saturday London and Cardiff may see temperatures reach a high of 20C (66.2F), Manchester 18C (64F) and 17C (62F) in Belfast, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Sunday will be warmer for some, although a band of rain moving in from the west will eventually bring showers across all of the UK by the evening.

Glasgow, Aberdeen and Belfast are due to see the same high of 17C (62F), while 19C (66F) is forecast in Cardiff and Manchester and 21C (70F) in London.