Unusually wet weather is expected to dry up but there is little hope of a white Christmas

Millions of Christmas getaway motorists were hit by wet weather across large parts of the country on Saturday, when a tornado apparently formed in Surrey.

More than 100 flood warnings were issued as downpours moved eastwards across southern England on Saturday afternoon and into the evening.

The Met Office said there had been reports of a tornado in Chertsey on Saturday morning, and footage on social media showed it tearing through garden fences.

Met Office (@metoffice) There have been reports of a tornado in Chertsey, Surrey this morning. The radar image on the left shows the heavy shower that would have caused it. The Doppler image on the right shows relative motion of rain droplets; the circled area highlights the rapid circulation pic.twitter.com/waYvXrrB1Q

Fire crews scrambled to deal with reports of damage to properties in the area. Resident Paula Webb told Surrey Live: “All I can remember is it was really heavy rain, I looked outside and it was so dark, it sounded almost like it was a plane taking off, you could see the trees were literally bent over. It was over in seconds, I could just see tiles off roofs and all the fencing down.”

Surrey Fire and Rescue service said in a statement: “We were called to a high wind incident affecting a number of houses in the Chertsey area.” Four fire engines and two aerial ladders were sent to the town, where crews worked to “make houses safe from damage to roofs”.



A further 255 flood alerts were also in place across England, stretching into the north. Up to 30mm of rain was due to fall in nine hours on Saturday as December’s unusually wet weather continues. A yellow heavy rain warning in southern parts of the country is in place until 9am on Sunday.

The yellow warning, which is the lowest on the Met Office’s scale means flooding of “a few homes and businesses is likely”, as well as disruption to bus and train services meaning increased journey times.

Dramatic pictures taken by a drone showed the Great Ouse in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, where it has burst its banks. The car park of the Best Western Dolphin Hotel, situated next to the river, was underwater on Saturday.

Receptionist Fiona Jones, who said the hotel remains open for business despite the weather, joked: “We have no car park at the moment, it’s a boating lake.”

Part of the hotel is on stilts as it sits on the river’s natural floodplain, she said, explaining that the car park has been flooded since Thursday. “The whole of the water meadow is flooded as well,” she said.

Saturday’s rainfall came after an already unusually wet December. Some areas of the country, including Essex, have already received a month’s rainfall with 10 days still to go until the new year. The country as a whole had received 92% of its average rainfall for December by Thursday.

Saturday’s wet weather was the result of an area of low pressure sweeping eastwards across the Channel, proving bad news for the more than 6m trips estimated by the RAC to be taken over the weekend.

Better news, however, lies ahead. Alex Burkill, a Met Office meteorologist, said: “The rain that we’re seeing coming through should clear quite early on from the south-east” on Sunday.

“Otherwise, we’re going to see some showers coming in places and lingering fog across northern parts. But, generally, tomorrow should be slightly drier, especially for those southern counties,” he said.

Temperatures will hit 10C in the south-west on Saturday, although some areas of the north may have lows of 3C because of mist and fog. “There is a general drying theme as we go towards Christmas day,” Burkill said. “On Monday and Tuesday there should be some drier weather around. That being said, at the moment we are expecting another spell of wet weather on Monday night and slowly clearing as we go through Christmas Eve. So it’s not a complete dry picture by any means.”

Hopes of a white Christmas are faint. “It’s looking pretty unlikely now, I think,” said Burkill. “On Christmas Day itself we should see any lingering rain clearing away with high pressure bringing a largely settled day. It might be quite cold, chilly but it’s looking largely dry.

“The only possibility of a white Christmas is there may be a couple of showers across parts of Scotland and over higher ground these could be falling as sleet and snow. It may be one of those where it’s technically a white Christmas where a little bit of snow is reported somewhere but, for the majority of us, it’s looking like it’s turning dry.

“It’s good news in as much as people will be able to go out and enjoy any outdoor Christmas presents and go for a stroll to work off the dinner.”