Heavy showers and strong winds over the weekend could bring flooding to already soaked parts of the UK, just a week after Storm Babet caused serious damage and several deaths.
Forecasters said areas in London and the south of England, the Highlands and north-east of Scotland and Northern Ireland were all expected to be hit with heavy rain over the next few days.
A speed restriction has been imposed by Network Rail Scotland, resulting in significant delays to train services and there will be no LNER services between Edinburgh and Aberdeen until Monday.
The worst-affected regions could record gusts of 70mph or nearly 4in of rain, leading to possible flooding, travel delays and power cuts.
The Met Office forecaster Dan Stroud said there would be frequent showers across the south and west of England on Saturday, which would move across Wales and into the south-east during the morning, before a more general area of cloud and rain moved up, bringing heavy rain and strong winds.
“That will move north and eastwards during the course of Saturday and into Sunday, behind it [will come] showers which could be locally heavy and thundery and particularly squally,” he said.
There is a yellow rain warning covering London and south-east England until the end of Sunday.
Stroud said: “The band of cloud and rain will continue moving northwards during Sunday, especially focused in eastern Scotland, which is already rather sensitive following the high rainfall from Storm Babet, so [there will be] more unwelcome rain for that patch of the world, and we have a yellow rain warning in place there today and tomorrow.
“On its own, the rainfall totals are not that high, but given the fact we’ve had all that rain from Storm Babet it doesn’t take much for there to be localised impacts because the ground is already saturated.”
The latest Scottish flood forecast said “significant flooding impacts” were likely in the north-east on Friday and Saturday due to torrential downpours.
The Environment Agency has 39 flood warnings in place, stretching from north-east to south-west England, meaning flooding should be expected.
The unsettled weather is forecast to continue next week, though the initial focus of heavier showers is more likely over England and Wales.
