The Met Office has issued “danger to life” warnings with Britain set to be hit by a month’s worth of rain over just 30 hours.
Homes could be hit with powercuts and communities cut off as downpours arrive across the UK on Friday, forecasters warned. Gale-force winds of up to 60mph will also batter some regions and the first snow of the season might hit higher ground.
A yellow weather warning for rain is in place from 12pm on Friday until midnight on Saturday, covering most of Wales and the south west of England, plus a swathe of the north stretching from Birmingham to Carlisle.
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Met Office spokeswoman Nicola Maxey said that a "low-pressure system" over the Azores is expected to come across to the UK, bringing widespread rain with it.
She said: "The areas most at risk are the areas that are within the warning areas, so you've got parts of Cumbria and the Pennines. There's a warning over Wales and then there's another warning over parts of the South West.
"We're looking at 30mm to 50mm of rain quite widely, with perhaps 120mm over higher ground for the warning in south Wales."
She said: “We've also got some polar maritime air moving in across the country, so where this warmer air that's coming up from the south meets the colder air, you see the heaviest rain at that point.
“Because of the colder air, there's a possibility that some of the rain may fall as snow, but only over very high ground in the north
