Southern Britain braced for second day of heavy rain

More heavy rain could bring travel disruption and flooding across southern England and south Wales on Friday.

The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for rain covering the area which runs until midnight, following a similar alert on Thursday.

Heavy rain may lead to some travel disruption and flooding in places across southern England and southern Wales on Friday.

It was likely further warnings will be issued across the weekend, the forecasting body said.

Friday’s rain could take the total falling on parts of the affected area to between 50 and 100mm in 48 hours – Okehampton in Devon seeing 44.4mm on Thursday.

Commuters are warned to expect spray and sudden flooding, leading to difficult driving conditions and some road closures.

Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern said: “The outbreaks of rain that we’ve seen arrive through Thursday across the south and south west will essentially keep going during Friday and into the weekend.

“There will be ebbs and flows in the rainfall. There’ll be pulses of heavier rain at times and then lighter rain at times.”

After a relatively calm start to Friday, he said the rain would become “heavier and more persistent through the morning” with the wettest weather likely to the south of the M4.

Clouds are expected to move north in the evening with the rain easing off.

“Depending on where you are in the UK, you’ll experience radically different types of weather,” he said, with plenty of warm sunshine expected under brighter skies for much of the country, except for the North Sea coast which will see plenty of cloud.

Temperatures could reach 27C in places with the potential for the warmest day of the year in parts of western Scotland.

The weekend remains unsettled, but will start mainly dry before cloud and outbreaks of rain return to the south with showers further north.

It will be cooler on Sunday into Monday with further outbreaks of showery rain.

The Environment Agency introduced six flood alerts, where flooding is considered possible, in England on Thursday including three in Devon and on the River Thames between Putney Bridge and Teddington Weir.

The agency said while surface water flooding is “possible and not expected” across the warning area on Friday, inland flooding remains possible until Monday.

No warnings have been issued by Natural Resources Wales.