An update from the Met offfice
A busy weekend’s weather ahead, especially tomorrow, with a broadly unsettled week to follow, albeit with a reduced risk of disruption.
Changes in emphasis from yesterday’s message:
The large scale message for our region is similar to yesterday’s with a broad area of rain sweeping westwards across all parts of the Northwest throughout tomorrow, some of the rain on the heavy side, more especially through the afternoon and evening period. However, whereas 24 hours ago we were anticipating the rain to fully clear westwards through tomorrow evening, it now looks like it will hang on for appreciably longer across the western half of the region (mainly W of the M6) and especially West Cheshire and Merseyside where the rain could linger for much of tomorrow night, albeit eventually turning lighter and more intermittent as the night wears on. This has implications for overall event rainfall totals and the impact assessment compared to this time yesterday.
Severe weather warnings/Flood Risk Guidance update:
Yesterday’s very low likelihood of medium impacts rainfall warning, which covered Cheshire, Merseyside, GM and the S half of Lancashire has now been revised and extended to cover the entire Northwest. The risk/impact assessment has been raised to a low likelihood of medium impacts with validity time 03:00 Saturday to 12:00 Sunday. The updated warning is attached above. The focus for the largest rainfall totals is again more towards the western fringes of our region and with much of Wales now at elevated flood risk the warning there has been escalated to amber with the far W of Cheshire including Cheshire, along with the Wirral, included within this amber issue. The risk assessment here is for a medium likelihood of medium impacts which essentially translates to a greater likelihood of property flooding and disruption to road/rail travel in these areas, especially due to surface water excess. The amber warning is valid from 12:00 tomorrow through to 06:00 Sunday and is attached above for your information. It’s worth mentioning that this is not our standard type of rainfall event with winds between S and W. This time the flow will be more N to NE’ly initially, becoming more W to NW’ly later, hence those places not normally associated with prolonged rainfall events such as Merseyside and W Cheshire are in the firing line this time.