Despite a break in heavy rain, several areas of England are preparing for potential flooding. Sunday and Monday saw parts of central and southern England inundated with over a month’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, resulting in school and road closures and significant transport disruption. While no further rain is expected on Tuesday, the Environment Agency has issued more than 25 flood warnings, indicating that flooding is expected, with a further 65 flood alerts indicating that flooding is possible. These warnings cover areas including Buckinghamshire, Newport, Northampton, Somerset, and Worcestershire, as well as regions surrounding the River Great Ouse.
While river levels are expected to stabilise on Tuesday, the Environment Agency is continuing to monitor them closely. Further to this, aspects of Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, and Northamptonshire experienced over 100mm of rain in the last 48 hours. Flooding is most severe in Bedfordshire, with the A421 remaining closed and no timeline available for its reopening, leaving locals to dub the road “Bedfordshire’s new river”.
BBC Weather commentator Matt Taylor suggested that the worst of the rainfall is over, but that the recent heavy rain will continue to impact the affected areas for some time yet. It will take a while for some of the rainfall to soak into the ground and for it to work its way through the river system, meaning that some areas may experience continued rising river levels. Network Rail engineers have been unable to fully repair flood-damaged signalling equipment, causing train disruptions. Tuesday and early Wednesday are expected to be dry and sunny, although further rain is planned for later in the week, with a yellow weather warning in place for parts of northern England and the north Midlands on Thursday. Temperatures will gradually decline, although it is unlikely that frost will develop, due to plenty of cloud cover. Highs of approximately 16C (61F) are anticipated for southern England
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