Heavy rain is forecast to return to Cumbria with up to 12 hours of rainfall and further flooding possible, residents in the county have been warned.
The Environment Agency said up to 58mm of rain could fall on Wednesday evening into Thursday, potentially hampering the recovery of the areas worst-hit at the weekend.
Other forecasters have predicted between 20mm and 40mm of rainfall starting on Wednesday afternoon.
However, any flooding would not be of the same magnitude as that caused by Storm Desmond, which resulted in thousands of people being evacuated from their homes and many more without power for days.
Sixteen flood alerts remain in place across Cumbria and Lancashire – however 48 have been removed in the past 24 hours indicating that the worst of the storm is over.
Only one severe weather warning, meaning there is a risk to life, remains in place, for the area around the Lancashire village of St Michaels, south of the swollen river Wyre.
Flood warnings remain in place for areas around the rivers Eden and Petteril, including Keswick campsite and Carlisle city centre – whose main artery, Warwick Road, only began to return to normal on Tuesday amid a clear-up by Carlisle United footballers.
In a flood warning posted on Tuesday evening, the Environment Agency warned of more rain to come: “River levels have peaked and are receding to normal levels. However, a flood alert remains in force. We advise that you keep an eye on the situation by listening to weather forecasts, checking our web pages or calling Floodline.
“Operational teams are focusing on removal of water. Key to this is identifying suitable sites for the installation of pumping equipment which is being brought in from across the country.
“Our incident response teams are on 24-hour duty. We will continue to monitor the situation and update this forecast as new information becomes available. Rain is forecast between 5am and midday on 9 December of up to 10mm in 1 hour. This is a low confidence forecast.
“This is forecast for the north-west and south Lakes area. A further persistent band of rain is forecast over Cumbria [on] Wednesday evening of up to 58mm maximum and will continue into Thursday.”
Steve Cleaton, of BBC Weather, said rain would begin to ease off in the early hours of Thursday.
“There is scope for some issues because of the persistent rain but nothing like what it was over the weekend – when there was 36 hours of rain. This will be about 10 to 12 hours,” he said.
“The level of rainfall will be between 20mm to 40mm – it’s a reasonable amount of rain but not comparable to what we had.”
