Heavy rain and strong winds bring severe flooding to United Kingdom, causing disruption to New Year celebrations.
Parts of the United Kingdom have been hit by severe flooding Wednesday as heavy rain and strong winds continued to cause disruption, especially after New Year’s celebrations.
Many parts of Greater Manchester have been affected drastically as the rain flooded almost all the month in two days, causing widespread street, parking lots, and roads flooding, stranding many cars with some being entirely submerged.
The Greater Manchester Police declared the incident a major, which brought in mountain rescue teams to help with rescuing some people trapped within their homes submerged by the flooded water and some stranded in automobiles. The Met Office issued new warnings of likely deteriorating conditions for flooding since they had reported that conditions are going to be worse before becoming better.
Heavy rain started late Tuesday afternoon in the southern suburb of Manchester known as Didsbury and continued throughout the night. This overflowed rivers and waterways within the locality, forcing the evacuation of a hotel and closure of some roads in the locality. The severity of this flooding brought to mind issues over climate and weather patterns slowly changing. Experts say extreme weather is becoming more and more frequent.
It wasn’t just Manchester, though; the rest of the country’s celebrations had to come to an end. Rain and gusts of wind cancelled Edinburgh’s New Year’s Eve firework displays, while other events planned for outside on New Year’s Day – including swims and a bathtub boat race – were also cancelled.
The firework for New Year’s Eve at London went on by the River Thames despite rain and strong winds. Also, hard weather conditions caused cancellation of city parade in London on New Year’s Day, besides inflatables as well, with some of those being grounded by the wind. Some participants from the parade even included cheerleaders and musicians to be seen underneath their clear plastic coverings.
More than 150 communities were put under weather warnings, which mostly fell in northern England. The flooding was reported at mid-day. Most of the weather warnings were canceled as the weather improved. However, there were some transportation problems that were yet to be faced. The train services were affected because of cancellations due to water above tracks and hence impassable. The roads were closed for vehicular movement as they had been flooded and hence impassable.
As temperatures are expected to keep dropping, an ice warning has been issued for the entire Northern Ireland, parts of North Wales, England, and Scotland, and things are going to get worse before they improve through Thursday morning. A three-day snow warning issued by the Met Office covers most of England and Scotland and complicates the weather situation over the coming days. This has been a serious series of extreme weather conditions that indicate the ever-growing problem of climate change and its aftermath in communities across the UK. Authorities keep an eye on the situation very keenly, reminding citizens to keep watchful eyes as the conditions of the weather change.
Source: Associated Press