Thunderstorms and possible hail and lightning to hit parts of the UK
Thunderstorms and heavy showers are set to hit parts of Britain.
The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for thunderstorms covering north east England, south west Scotland, Lothian Borders, Central, Tayside and Fife plus Strathclyde as showers are set to build on Wednesday and maybe bring lightning and hail with it.
Met Office chief meteorologist Steve Willington said “slow-moving thundery showers” are the driving force behind the weather warning which runs to Wednesday at 8pm.
🌧️ Areas of rain continuing across parts of Northern Ireland and Scotland as we move into this evening⛈️ Elsewhere, showers and thunderstorms becoming increasingly isolated🌤️ Many places seeing some sunshine to end the day, but rather breezy in places pic.twitter.com/CrivdKOu95
— Met Office (@metoffice) June 8, 2022
Many places will miss the heaviest showers but a few areas could see “in excess of 30mm of rain in a couple of hours, possibly accompanied by lightning and hail, which would be enough to cause difficult driving conditions and localised surface water flooding”, according to the warning.
It adds there is “a small chance” that homes and businesses could be flooded quickly.
This could see damage caused to some buildings from floodwater, lightning strikes, hail or strong winds.
Residents could also face some cancellations to train and bus services.
Earlier in the day clusters of heavy showers and thunderstorms moved east across southern England left parts of Dorset, Hampshire, Sussex and Kent braced for torrential downpours, hail and lightning.
UPDATE: Clusters of heavy showers and thunderstorms continue to move east across southern England, with parts of Dorset, Hampshire, Sussex and Kent seeing some locally torrential downpours, hail and lightning in the next few hours ⛈️ pic.twitter.com/O2n3dYoyTW
— Met Office (@metoffice) June 8, 2022
There is also some wet and windy weather to come as the remnants of ex-Tropical Storm Alex, which brought heavy rain to southern Florida over the weekend, tracks to the northwest of the UK.
The UK will face “unseasonably” strong winds later this week and 45mph gusts by the time it has changed into a mature Atlantic low and hits UK shores.
Met Office deputy chief meteorologist Rebekah Sherwin said: “Although no longer a named storm, it will bring some unseasonably strong winds across the northern half of the UK, especially to the northwest on Friday and Saturday.
“The track of the low-pressure system currently looks to be grazing the far northwest of the UK on Friday and Saturday and, although the details are still being worked out, winds are likely to reach around 45mph for many areas in the north of the UK, with a chance of some gusts in excess of 55mph in some exposed northwestern island and coastal areas.”
Northwestern areas are set to see frequent showers, some of which are likely to be heavy and thundery, on Friday and Saturday.
It is expected the wind and showers will ease a day later and parts of the northwest and southern UK will have sunny spells and lighter winds over the weekend.
