London weather: Severe storms to bring flooding and 'significant disruption' as warnings are issued across the south-east

 
Weather warning: London could be hit by thunder and lightning storms (Picture: Twitter/@justinstokes_)
Gareth Vipers10 June 2015

Forecasters have warned of “significant disruption” as mild weather turns to thunderstorms that could lead to flooding.

A severe weather warning has been issued across southern England on Friday, which the Met Office is predicting could be the hottest day of the year so far.

But Londoners shouldn’t celebrate the balmy weather just yet as the weather warning also noted "significant disruption" from surface water flooding, with lightning and hail also expected to cause problems.

Severe storms are likely to begin from noon on Friday, followed by a band of more widespread heavy rain until the early hours of Saturday morning.

Met Office forecaster Dean Hall said: "Friday will start very warm and humid in the South but end up with thundery rain .

"Maximum temperatures, particularly in the South East, could reach 25C or 26C. There might be somewhere reaching 27C or even 28C.”

There is potential for high amounts of rainfall in very short periods in some areas, such as 20 to 30mm within an hour.

The conditions are set to be caused by an area of warm, humid air moving across France into southern Britain overnight on Thursday.

The mercury could soar as high as 28C, beating the year's previous highest point of 26.7C recorded in Frittenden, Kent last Friday.

He added: "But the thing that may spoil it is thunderstorms triggered by the heat and humidity. The atmosphere will become unstable.

"It looks like a more persistent band of heavy downpours as we go through Friday evening into Saturday."

Bookmakers are confident that Friday will be the hottest day of the year, with Coral offering odds of 8-11.

Punters can also get odds of 7-4 that the temperature reaches at least 28C.

Coral's Nicola McGeady said: "The great British weather has disappointed us so far but the odds suggest that will change by Friday, with the hottest day of the year so far expected.

"Whether it lasts or not remains to be seen."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in