A yellow warning for thunderstorms has been issued for south east England tomorrow, with the potential for disruption.
The alert issued from midnight to 3pm tomorrow covers south and eastern England.
It says driving conditions could be affected by spray, standing water and even hail and there may be delays to train services, power cuts, flooding and lightning strikes.
But while the forecast rain and downpours last week make it unlikely this summer – June, July and August – will see record dryness, forecasters warn there needs to be a period of above average rainfall to ease the drought.
A hosepipe ban came into place in London today for the first time in a decade due to a lack of rainfall over the summer months and heatwaves pushing up demand for water.
The ongoing dry weather has seen drought declared across swathes of England, with parched grass and struggling crops, streams drying up and river, reservoir and aquifer levels low.
Heavy rain is expected for some areas of the UK on Thursday and Friday, with parts of the South East potentially seeing 5-15mm of rain fall over three hours.
But the bank holiday is expected to be largely dry with warm sunny spells, though possibly wetter in the North West.
Spokesman Grahame Madge said: ‘We’ve definitely switched from the hot and dry regime to something that has rain in the forecast.
‘There’s some heavy rain for the next 24 to 36 hours, providing some relief to gardeners more than helping to top up long-term resources.’
While the forecast rain for this week will mean this month will ‘catch up a bit’ with rainfall totals, he said: ‘It’s certainly going to be a dry August for the whole of the UK.’
And he said some areas had gone without any significant rainfall from the middle of June until last week.
‘We’ve had below average rainfall for such a long time, it’s going to take a period of above average rain to make it up,’ he warned.
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