Parts of the UK have been hit by floods as motorists were forced to abandon their cars and forecasters warned of power cuts amid heavy rain.
Roads and train lines were flooded, causing travel misery as reports said some drivers had become stranded and abandoned their vehicles.
The Met Office had previously subjected a swathe of Scotland southeast of Edinburgh to an amber-level warning amid fears of life-threatening floods as the week’s bad weather continued.
But that warning appeared to have been rescinded mid-morning on Thursday
A much larger yellow alert area stretched south from Edinburgh across northeast England to Scarborough until the afternoon. Forecasters said flooding of homes and businesses was likely, as well as power cuts and travel disruption.
The beer garden at the Alyn Riverside Country Pub in Rossett, North Wales, was left swamped while dips in roads became unpassable.
Flooding and heavy rain also hit parts of northwest England, particularly Liverpool and Greater Manchester, and northeast Wales.
Met Office meteorologist Luke Miall warned that the wet weather would continue to blight parts of the country on Thursday.
He said: “As this system pushes up from the southeast through the course of the night, it will re-intensify and continue through much of Thursday.”
But this June was “still a long way off” the wettest-ever, when in 2012 an average of 149mm of rain fell.
The Met Office said Chillingham in Northumberland had seen nearly 1cm of rainfall in the space of an hour on Thursday morning.
The village received 73mm of rainfall over a 28-hour period – more than the 66.4mm average for the whole of June.
Elsewhere, Waddington in Lincolnshire saw nearly 40mm fall over a period of 14 hours, while over the same period Coleshill in Warwickshire saw 30mm fall and 31mm was seen at Astwood Bank in Worcestershire.
The Environment Agency had 23 flood warnings, requiring “immediate action”, in force across England.
Additional reporting by PA
