AN urgent thunderstorm and flooding warning has been issued as 30C heat is set to sweep the UK.
The Met Office has put a “large” yellow alert in place across much of England and Wales today with “torrential downpours” predicted.
Between 25mm and 40mm of rain could fall in just one hour in the south east and East Anglia – expecting to cause flash flooding and travel chaos.
The forecaster urgently shared tips for how to safely drive in thunderstorms – including a warning to stay clear of heading through flood water.
Elsewhere, 60mm of showers could batter Brits alongside frequent lightning, says the Met Office.
Hours of gusty winds and large hailstones are also predicted to hit.
The nation should brace for power cuts in parts – with other services to homes and businesses also being lost.
Fast flowing or deep floodwater is also possible, causing a danger to life, added the forecaster.
The yellow weather warning is in place until 11.59pm on Thursday.
Heavy rain and thundery conditions across parts of Wales, the Midlands and northern England will however, ease towards midday.
Among the storms, there will be “a lot of fine, dry and sunny weather” and Thursday will feel “very warm, very humid and very muggy”.
Highs of up to 30C are expected from Hampshire up to north London.
Western Scotland is predicted to experience the coolest temperatures of the day of between 17C and 18C.
Met Office meteorologist Simon Partridge said: “The problem is that the winds are very light as well, so where you see those heavy thundery showers, there’s not really much wind to blow them through as often as when you have showers and it’s a fairly breezy day – you don’t get much of the rain from one particular shower.
“Where those thunderstorms occur, that local area will probably get pretty much all of the rain that that thunder cloud is holding – so there could be very locally heavy downpours which bring along the risk of localised flooding and surface water problems for transport networks.”
THE Met Office has issued three major tips for driving in thunderstorms as travel chaos is expected thanks to sudden flooding.
Friday is forecast to be “mostly dry with plenty of sunny spells” with temperatures of up to 28C followed by “generally dry and still quite warm” weather over the weekend.
It comes after Brits raced to beaches as the mercury hit 32C amid a Yellow Health Alert being issued by the UK Health Security Agency.
The top temperature on Tuesday was 32C in London.
The south east hit 31C while the south west reached 29C and the Midlands warmed up to 28C.
East Midlands
Derby
Derbyshire
Leicester
Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
Northamptonshire
Nottingham
Nottinghamshire
Rutland
East of England
Bedford
Cambridgeshire
Central Bedfordshire
Essex
Hertfordshire
Luton
Norfolk
Peterborough
Southend-on-Sea
Suffolk
Thurrock
London & South East England
Bracknell Forest
Brighton and Hove
Buckinghamshire
East Sussex
Greater London
Hampshire
Isle of Wight
Kent
Medway
Milton Keynes
Oxfordshire
Portsmouth
Reading
Slough
Southampton
Surrey
West Berkshire
West Sussex
Windsor and Maidenhead
Wokingham
North East England
Darlington
Durham
Gateshead
Hartlepool
Middlesbrough
Newcastle upon Tyne
North Tyneside
Northumberland
Redcar and Cleveland
South Tyneside
Stockton-on-Tees
Sunderland
North West England
Blackburn with Darwen
Blackpool
Cheshire East
Cheshire West and Chester
Cumbria
Greater Manchester
Halton
Lancashire
Merseyside
Warrington
South West England
Bath and North East Somerset
Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole
Bristol
Devon
Dorset
Gloucestershire
North Somerset
Somerset
South Gloucestershire
Swindon
Wiltshire
Wales
Blaenau Gwent
Bridgend
Caerphilly
Cardiff
Carmarthenshire
Ceredigion
Conwy
Denbighshire
Flintshire
Gwynedd
Merthyr Tydfil
Monmouthshire
Neath Port Talbot
Newport
Powys
Rhondda Cynon Taf
Swansea
Torfaen
Vale of Glamorgan
Wrexham
West Midlands
Herefordshire
Shropshire
Staffordshire
Stoke-on-Trent
Telford and Wrekin
Warwickshire
West Midlands Conurbation
Worcestershire
Yorkshire & Humber
East Riding of Yorkshire
Kingston upon Hull
North East Lincolnshire
North Lincolnshire
North Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
York