More than 70 areas of the country will see showers on Bank Holiday Monday, but sunshine will still peak through the clouds for most. The Met Office believes Monday (August 31) is expected to be the best weather of the long weekend, after festival-goers braved the rain and mud in plastic ponchos on Saturday and Sunday.
Record Rainfall and Flood Alerts
Bradworthy Common in Devon saw 34.2mm of rain over 12 hours on Sunday, more than a third of the average for Devon for August. A flood warning was in place for Spadesbourne Brook in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, on Sunday night, meaning flooding is expected, while 15 areas were covered by Environment Agency (EA) flood alerts, meaning floods are possible.
Met Office senior operational meteorologist Dan Stroud said: “It’s another day of sunny spells and showers, a generally bright but cloudy start with sunny spells in the east, we will have some showers from the get-go in the west and they will become a bit more heavy, the odd rumble of thunder is possible.
“A drier and brighter end to the day. Monday promises to be the best of the three days, still showers around but a lot less than what we’ve seen.”
Week Ahead Forecast
“Tuesday across England and Wales promises to be reasonably fine with some lengthy sunny spells. It’s a different story across Scotland, we’ve got a band of cloud and rain.”
“Wednesday, it changes, it goes downhill, turning cloudy and wet during the course of Wednesday, particularly across Wales and northern England northwards.”
Festival and Cricket Disruptions
Music fans at Reading Festival were forced to don ponchos and umbrellas, and danced in the mud after getting caught in downpours over the weekend. While some were seen flinging mud at each other and playing in puddles, others hid beneath their plastic ponchos as they braved the poor weather conditions. Elsewhere, the cricket at Lord’s in London was halted by the rain on Saturday.
The wet weather comes after continued hot weather across the UK, which coincided with extremely dry conditions. The Met Office has previously said the UK is on course for its hottest summer on record after five heatwaves, with temperatures of up to 38.1C recorded in London.
Full List of Areas Facing Rain
Weather maps show 72 counties of the UK will see rain on Monday. The following are on the rain list.
Scotland: Shetland, Orkney, Western Isles (Na h-Eileanan Siar), Highland (including Caithness, Sutherland, and Skye), Aberdeenshire, Moray, Argyll and Bute, Dumfries and Galloway, Scottish Borders, Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Perth and Kinross, Angus, Fife.
Northern Ireland: County Antrim, County Down, County Londonderry / Derry, County Tyrone, County Fermanagh, County Armagh.
Wales: Anglesey, Gwynedd, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Powys, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Wrexham, Glamorgan, Gwent.
England: Cornwall (and Isles of Scilly), Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire (and Isle of Wight), West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Greater London, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, West Midlands, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire.
