Unfortunately, now that across much of the North Midlands and Northern England the ground is “saturated” which means that the soil and ground can not hold onto any more water that falls onto it, so any excess water becomes surface water “run off”, which is basically water that ends up in rivers.
This means that even fairly moderate rainfall, if persistent enough, is capable of producing a real risk of flooding. As a result, we have issued a “high risk” for parts of Northern England for the next couple of days. For example the Pennines, Greater Manchester and Leeds are included in this zone.
You can see on the map that there is a risk elsewhere in the country to. As heavy showers are expected to develop tonight and tomorrow morning in the south west, Wales, and later through tomorrow afternoon more widely across the Midlands, Northern England, Eastern Ireland and Southern Scotland. The showers will be fairly isolated to begin with, however later in the evening they are likely to develop into longer spells of rain. The showers tomorrow could also produce some thunder, hail and strong winds, the areas most at risk from these conditions are also outlined in the risk map.
It’s the merging of these showers that poses the problem. From Tuesday night into Wednesday, the rain is expected to merge across parts of the North Midlands and Northern England, with some heavy bursts in there. This means that by Wednesday the situation could become pretty dire in this part of the world, with a real risk of flooding. Do stay safe.