Weather warnings as strong winds and rain hit Surrey

SEVERE weather warnings are in place with much of Surrey expected to be battered by strong winds and rain today.

Half of the average rainfall for September fell in the county over 12 hours on Sunday with more rain expected throughout Monday.

The Met Office has issued an amber warning for the south east with gale forced winds expected for the south coast.

Blustery winds with gusts of up to 60mph are set to batter the region with up to 14mm rain to fall on the county, Surrey weatherman Ian Currie said.

He said: "It looks unsettled tonight, tomorrow and over the next few days. There will be blustery showers, possibly heavy with hail and thunder. Very unsettled."

The severe weather has been caused by low pressure from the tail end of Hurricane Nadine in the central Atlantic, Mr Currie said.

He said: "The cause of all the weather has been the hurricane that reached the Azores from the central Atlantic.

"That injected a lot of very warm rain up through France and Spain such that on Sunday there were temperatures up to 30 degrees celsius, yet over Surrey and Sussex it was only nine or ten degrees celsius. 

"That incredible temperature difference set off a lowering of the pressure, condensation and the heavy rain and windy weather that we had yesterday."

But Mr Currie said the relatively dry ground should be able to soak up much of the recent rain.

He said: "We have had it very dry this September so there is a lot of accommodation in the ground for the rain. Up until yesterday we only had three millimetres of rain.

"This rain we are having at the moment will probably be our monthly rainfall or more over the past 48 hours. It does look unsettled through the week but I think next weekend will be drier again."

He added: "There is an old saying that September can dry up the wells or break down the bridges, I think over the past three weeks we've had the drying up of the wells and now we have got a bit of the breaking down of the bridges."