UK weather: Britain to be lashed by downpours – with threat to life warning issued

Heavy rainfall is forecast across the UK over the next few days, bringing with it a “potential threat to life” warning.

An amber weather warning – the second most serious – covers mid and northwestern areas of Wales, with up to 90mm of rainfall due over Monday until 10am on Tuesday.

The warning indicates the potential of power cuts, fast flowing floods, damage to buildings and a threat to life.

A yellow weather warning – the lowest of the three warning types – is in place for central parts of Wales and in the North of England until Tuesday lunchtime, including the cities of Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield and Huddersfield.

A projected 50mm of rain – a little under half the monthly average for March – is due to fall in these parts.

Met Office meteorologist Greg Dewhurst said: “Through Monday it will be a fairly bright start but we will see rain spread in from the west by the afternoon.

“Then we will see heavy rain right through the rest of Monday, overnight and into Tuesday morning.”

The average rainfall for March is 117mm in Wales, meaning the worst affected areas could be hit by three weeks of rain in just over 24 hours.

Mr Dewhurst added: “The ground is already saturated and with all the rainfall we have had over recent weeks it is likely to lead to further flooding in places.”

Natural Resources Wales, a government agency, had no severe flood warnings and no flood warnings in place on Monday morning.

The agency had one flood alert in place meaning flooding is possible.

Wales has been badly hit by flooding in recently weeks.

Prince Charles visited communities facing massive repair and clean-up operations in the Rhondda Cynon Taf area last month.

The Environment Agency had no severe flood warnings, 22 flood warnings and 102 flooding alerts in place for England on Monday morning.

Boris Johnson was heckled when he visited the town of Bewdley in Worcestershire on the River Severn on Sunday, which saw some of the worst flooding in the country in February.

The prime minister has been heavily criticised for failing to visit flood-hit communities during the crises.

Some onlookers shouted “traitor” as he looked at the flood defences.

Mr Johnson said during the visit it was “too easy” for a PM to “come to a place in a middle of an emergency”, but that it was “not so easy, frankly, for the emergency services”.

He said: “What they have to do is then break off and gold command has to find somewhere to brief you, everybody has to gather. They’re diverting from their work for hours and hours.

“What I’ve been doing since the flooding began is coordinating the national response but also looking at what we can do in the next months and years to ensure this country really is ready to cope with the impacts of flooding.”

(c) Sky News 2020: UK weather: Britain to be lashed by downpours – with threat to life warning issued