Flooding could affect parts of UK until Tuesday

LONDON: Parts of the country could still be affected by flooding through to Tuesday, according to the Environment Agency (EA).

In a forecast of the flooding risk in England and Wales, the EA states: “River flooding is expected to continue in the Lower River Don washlands area in South Yorkshire through to at least Tuesday, where properties will continue to flood and there will be continued travel disruption.”

It comes as 79 flood warnings and 111 flood alerts were still in place in England by Saturday at 11.10am. The EA states that river flooding is expected for Evesham in Worcestershire on Saturday and residents should be braced for properties to be affected and travel to be disrupted.

It warns that local river flooding is also “possible” in parts of South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and parts of the Midlands until Monday, and in Oxfordshire on Saturday. Communities in parts of central and northern England were cleaning up after being overwhelmed with water following torrential rain in recent days.

The Met Office said that most of the southern UK and Scotland is set to stay dry with sunny spells while some heavy showers are expected in the far west of Wales and Cornwall on Saturday. The EA for Yorkshire and the North East said there was still lots of flood water in the region where a pumping operation is under way to reduce water levels.

In an online message Martin Christmas, of the EA, said: “We are starting to think about moving from emergency rescue response into recovery and that means looking at our flood warnings and then starting to think about all the inspections we need to do to look at potential repairs for banks and flood assets based on the loading they have received from the water in the last week.

“We have still got tens of people out there in the field carrying on with pumping activity trying to get levels at Fishlake reduced and we are also keeping an eye on East Yorkshire as well.”

The Met Office said its Sheffield weather station has recorded its wettest ever autumn. It stated: “With 15 days still to go, the site has already recorded 427.6 mm of #rain. The previous record was set in 2000 with 425.2 mm of rain falling between September 1 and November 30 that year.” There is also a “risk of seeing a very cold start” on Tuesday, according to Met Office meteorologist Sophie Yeomans.