Thunder storms bringing heavy rain are forecast for much of the country on Thursday, and could lead to some flooding, the Environment Agency has warned. Though the Met Office has said the storms will miss many places, which will remain dry, where they do develop there will be intense downpours, with lightning and hail also possible.  

On Thursday morning there were 24 food alerts active in England, indicating that localised flooding is possible. Active flood alerts and more serious flood warnings can be tracked here.

The Met Office issued a Yellow Warning of rain covering the Eastern half of England on Thursday. According to The Met Office’s weather impact matrix, heavy rainfall and thunderstorms are far from certain to affect these areas, but the storms are set to have high impacts if they do break in these areas.

The Met Office Chief Forecaster said two waves of thunderstorms are expected to affect the UK on Thursday. The first wave is expected to develop over southern England early on Thursday and push northwards across parts of the Midlands and East Anglia, clearing by late morning or early afternoon. The second is expected to develop further north, and move eastwards, before clearing in the evening.  The second wave of storms is set to bring 20 to 30 mm of rainfall within an hour and up to 80 mm in 2 or 3 hours, though this heavy rainfall is expected to be localised to small areas.