Heavy rain to batter Scotland as Met Office issue flooding alert – check if you’re affected
A former killer hurricane will bring torrential rain to parts of Scotland overnight and tomorrow morning.
Hurricane Lee – which blows at 165 miles per hour at its peak – is believed to have claimed two lives in the United States before racing more than 3,000 miles across the Atlantic toward Britain.
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The Met Office issued yellow weather warnings for Perth and Kinross, Stirling, the Highland region, Dumfries and Galloway, the Scottish Borders and the Strathclyde regions of Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire.
Weather experts said 20 to 40 mm of rain (up to 12.5 inches) could fall in some areas and up to 60 mm (over two inches) at higher altitudes.
The warning period begins this evening at 6 p.m. and ends tomorrow at 8 a.m.
And seven flood warnings have been issued by SEPA.
The areas covered by the warnings are Argyll and Bute, Central, Dumfries and Galloway, Findhorn, Nairn, Moray and Speyside, Scottish Borders, Skye and Lochaber and Tayside.
Grahame Madge is a spokesman for the Met Office. He said: “Over the next day or so we are experiencing an extremely unsettled period during which former Hurricane Lee will bring higher humidity and associated rainfall to Scotland and other western areas of the UK.
“Now the system has lost almost all of its original intensity, but former hurricanes retain some of their characteristics, such as heat and moisture, which can spice up the weather system in our sector.”
Hurricane Lee caused significant power outages during its stay off the east coast of the United States.
A 15-year-old boy drowned in Fermandina Beach, Florida, and a 51-year-old man died in Searsport, Maine, when a tree fell on the car he was traveling in.
Additionally, a 21-year-old man remains missing after the boat he was in capsized in high waves at Manasquan Inlet, New Jersey.
Scotland is also expected to be hit by the tail of another former hurricane this weekend.
Hurricane Nigel is currently developing between the African and American continents and is being tracked by the National Hurricane Center in the United States.
Its expected direction will take it close to the coast of Canada before turning back on itself and heading towards the UK.
The Met Office’s Oli Claydon said it had reduced to a former tropical storm by the time it made landfall here, but stressed it would still be wet and windy on Saturday and Sunday.
He said: “Nigel is expected to develop into a major hurricane in the Atlantic, with expected speeds of 110mph by Tuesday.”
“The current path heads towards the Canadian coast but then returns to the North Atlantic.”
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