Britain set for further downpours

The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for the whole of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales while the Environment Agency has three flood warnings in place.

Warnings have been issued over potential flash floods, but forecasters do not expect conditions to be as bad as the torrential rain that caused misery for thousands of people last month.

The heavy rain will begin on Sunday morning in the south before battering the north of England and Wales during the afternoon. But once the rain has gone, forecasters say temperatures in parts of the country could top 26C (79F).

Meteogroup UK, the weather division of the Press Association, said the bad weather will continue until well into next week.

Forecaster Jeremy Plester said: "There will be heavy rain (on Sunday), beginning in Kent and Sussex ... At the same time another band of rain further north will spread west across the country from Wales across the Midlands to Yorkshire.

"Those two bands of rain will merge later in the day into a big splodge of rain that will cover everywhere from the north of Humberside to Liverpool and Wales.

"In the afternoon the sun will come out in the South East and we are expecting temperatures of 25-26C (77-79F), making it one of the hottest days of the year. That is because of warm air coming in from the Iberian Peninsula. It has been extremely hot across France, Germany and the Low Countries in recent days.

"It is going to be cool and rainy for most of next week. It will pick up a bit towards the weekend, but even then there will be showers. Last month's floods happened because a band of rain stopped and battered a single region for 24 hours. This band of rain is moving, so we aren't expecting anything as serious."

The Environment Agency currently has three flood warnings in place, all for areas in the North East, and six flood watches.