Flooding likely as Met Office issues new amber warning

The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings for wind and rain across many parts of the UK, including an amber warning for rain across much of south Wales, where some flooding and travel disruption is expected.

Winds of more than 70mph (112km/h) have also been recorded in parts of Wales and Scotland, adding to the impact on travel on Sunday.

In south Wales, areas badly hit by Storm Bert in November are among those now covered by the Met Office amber weather warning for rain.

With the warning valid until 06:00 GMT on Monday, the Met Office expects between 50mm and 100mm of rain may fall during this period.

In addition to travel disruption, they also warn that flooding has the potential to be a "danger to life", that homes and businesses may become flooded and some communities could become cut off.

Andrew Morgan, leader of Rhondda Cynon Taf council, said "the next few hours will be crucial," as crews distributed sandbags to high-risk flood areas across the county borough.

Yellow weather warnings for rain are in place for the southern half of Wales and southwest England until 08:00 on Monday.

Some 20mm to 50mm of rain (0.8 to 2in) could fall during the course of the warnings, with up to 100mm (4in) possible on south-facing hills. This may lead to localised flooding, travel and power supply issues.

There were high winds on Sunday with gusts reaching 77mph (124km/h) at Capel Curig (Gwynedd) and 74mph (119km/h) at South Uist (Western Isles), leading to travel disruption in some areas.

Yellow warnings for wind had been in force on Sunday, including one across a large area of Scotland and England but expired at 18:00.

The weather for much of the month so far has been dominated by an area of high pressure stuck over central and northern Europe.

This prevented rain-bearing Atlantic weather systems from reaching us and was also responsible for the continuous influx of cold air from the east, which kept daytime temperatures below normal for this time of year.

However, recently we have seen another surge of frigid arctic air across Canada and the US which has helped fire up a strong jet stream across the Atlantic.

While the jet stream will weaken next week, we will still see our weather come in from the Atlantic, rather than from Europe.

This will lead to fairly changeable conditions and temperatures closer to the seasonal average of 7 to 10 Celsius (45 to 50F). On the clearer nights we will also see the return of a frost in places.