UK weather: Met Office issues yellow wind warning with gusts of 55mph and showers set to hammer Britain today

The Met Office has issued an urgent warning for strong winds throughout today across England and Wales with gusts of up to 55mph accompanied by heavy rain.

The alert began as soon as it was announced at 6.25am and will run until 10pm – with forecasters warning of travel delays, power cuts and large waves on the coast.

The yellow warning covers all of England up to Keswick in the west and Scarborough in the east, along with the whole of Wales and Northern Ireland – but not Scotland.

The Met Office said a depression will move east just to the north of Scotland and bring strong winds to the UK, with gusts of 40 to 45mph expected widely inland.

Isolated gusts as high as 50 to 55mph are set to hit exposed coasts as well as heavy rain, which will ‘likely to lead to some disruption and longer journey times’.

National Highways said the M48 Severn Bridge connecting England and Wales had been shut due to the winds, with a diversion route via the M4 Prince of Wales Bridge.

The Met Office yellow wind warning runs from 6.25am until 10pm today for much of the UK

Forecasters said it was ‘likely that some coastal routes, sea fronts and coastal communities will be affected by spray and/or large waves’.

They added that ‘some delays to road, rail, air and ferry transport are likely’ and ‘probably some bus and train services affected, with some journeys taking longer’.

In addition, ‘some short term loss of power and other services is possible’ and ‘delays for high-sided vehicles on exposed routes and bridges likely’.

It comes as temperatures will be slightly chillier than average with significantly less rainfall from tomorrow as the country recovers from a wet and windy start to 2024.

The Met Office said today will be the wettest day of the week as a band of rain pushes its way south-eastwards, causing widespread rainfall across the country.

Temperatures will generally sit a little below their April average with particularly cold starts in Scotland, where cities such as Edinburgh and Glasgow are predicted to see early morning lows of 2C or 3C.

Slightly warmer temperatures of around 8C to 10C are expected across England throughout the day, with highs of 12C.

Stormy clouds are pictured over the Oxfordshire countryside at Dunsden this morning

In some colder areas, such as northern Wales and Scotland, showers may be accompanied by wintry winds bringing sleet and hail, Met Office forecaster Simon Partridge said.

He added: ‘Monday is classic April showers really. We’ve got a pretty windy day across the whole of the UK with gusts of wind up to 40-50mph pretty much anywhere across the country.

‘With that, we’ll have some quite blustery showers which will be slightly wintry in nature across the northern parts of the UK.

‘You could get a little bit of sleet and certainly some hail so it will be a much colder feeling day.’

But the rest of this week is predicted to be much drier and less windy, with localised showers in northern Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland tomorrowbut sunny weather elsewhere, especially south and east England.

Some areas had unusually warm temperatures over the weekend – the highest being 21.8C recorded in Writtle, Essex, on Saturday.

So the drop to more typical temperatures this week with stronger winds today ‘might be a bit of a shock to the system for a number of people’, Mr Partridge said.

There will be more rain in Scotland on Wednesday and Thursday, the Met Office said, but temperatures across the rest of the country will be close to their seasonal averages with cloudy skies and scattered light showers.

By Friday, temperatures across the country are expected to reach the low to mid-teens with slightly warmer conditions in the south.

Forecasters also said the lighter rain seen across some parts of the UK will slowly move away towards the end of the week as an area of high pressure drifts eastwards, making for a ‘mostly dry’ Saturday and Sunday nationwide.

Mr Partridge said light winds and clear skies would make for ‘chilly nights’ and cold early mornings, though temperatures will rise quickly once the sun comes up.

He added decreased rainfall was good news for parts of the country that have experienced, or been at risk of, flooding over the last few weeks.

‘We’ve had way more rain so far this year than we would usually have, so (next week) is a chance for all the places that have been suffering from all the rainfall to finally recover a little bit,’ he said.

Figures show England saw a record amount of rainfall between October 2022 and March 2024, the highest for any 18-month period since comparable data began in 1836.