A band of heavy rain, accompanied by strong and gusty winds pushed across Cornwall overnight last night, resulting in a number of towns and villages experiencing flooding this morning. There was some intense, but short-lived downpours as the rain pushed east, with Cardinham recording 18.8mm between 5 and 6 am this morning with total rainfall of 50.2mm between 10pm last night at 8am this morning. The heavy rain was accompanied by some strong winds with gusts to 55mph.

The joint Environment Agency/Met Office Flood Forecasting Centre issued an extreme rainfall alert yesterday afternoon to give emergency responders and local authorities advance warning of the heavy rain overnight and severe weather warnings were issued yesterday evening. National and local weather forecasts on TV and radio highlighted “torrential rain and gales force winds” in southwest England and south Wales throughout the day yesterday.

Peter Tatlow, from Cornwall Highway Services, said to the BBC that although a severe weather warning was issued by the Met Office on Tuesday, it was “almost impossible” to keep gullies clear of leaves and debris at this time of year.

The weather has improved quickly this morning with cloud clearing to give some sunshine but with the odd shower later. More showers are expected to push across the southwest tonight and the Met Office and Environment Agency are monitoring this situation.

Further severe weather is expected to affect other parts of the UK in the next 24-36 hours with further heavy rain possible in western and north-western areas. We have issued a Weather Advisory for Northern Ireland for heavy rain with the potential of 50 to 80mm falling onto already saturated ground.

Related Articles

• Storms cause flooding chaos in Cornwall (independent.co.uk)
• Severe weather disrupts Cornwall (bbc.co.uk)
• Landslide cuts off Cornwall as storms hit south west (telegraph.co.uk)
• People ‘trapped’ in Cornish floods (thesun.co.uk)
• People Rescued From Cars In Cornwall Floods (news.sky.com)