UK weather: Urgent Met Office warning as thunderstorms, flooding & 30C heat to sweep nation sparking travel chaos

AN urgent thunderstorm and flooding warning has been issued as 30C heat is set to sweep the UK.

The Met Office has put a “large” yellow alert in place across much of England and Wales on Thursday with “torrential downpours” predicted.

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Between 25mm and 40mm of rain could fall in just one hour in the south east and East Anglia – expecting to cause flash flooding and travel chaos.

The forecaster urgently shared tips for how to safely drive in thunderstorms – including a warning to stay clear of heading through flood water.

Elsewhere, 60mm of showers could batter Brits alongside frequent lightening, says the Met Office.

Hours of gusty winds and large hailstones are also predicted to hit.

The nation should brace for power cuts in parts – with other services to homes and businesses also being lost.

Fast flowing or deep floodwater is also possible, causing a danger to life, added the Met.

The yellow weather warning is in place until 11.59pm on Thursday.

Heavy rain and thundery conditions across parts of Wales, the Midlands and northern England will however, ease towards midday.

Among the storms, there will be “a lot of fine, dry and sunny weather” and Thursday will feel “very warm, very humid and very muggy”.

Highs of up to 30C are expected from Hampshire up to north London.

Western Scotland is predicted to experience the coolest temperatures of the day of between 17C and 18C.

Met Office meteorologist Simon Partridge said: “The problem is that the winds are very light as well, so where you see those heavy thundery showers, there’s not really much wind to blow them through as often as when you have showers and it’s a fairly breezy day – you don’t get much of the rain from one particular shower.

“Where those thunderstorms occur, that local area will probably get pretty much all of the rain that that thunder cloud is holding – so there could be very locally heavy downpours which bring along the risk of localised flooding and surface water problems for transport networks.”

Friday is forecast to be “mostly dry with plenty of sunny spells” with temperatures of up to 28C followed by “generally dry and still quite warm” weather over the weekend.

It comes after Brits raced to beaches as the mercury hit 32C amid a Yellow Health Alert being issued by the UK Health Security Agency.

The top temperature on Tuesday was 32C in London.

The south east hit 31C while the south west reached 29C and the Midlands warmed up to 28C.