The Northwest of England and Southwest of Scotrland have suffered an extreme rainfall event over the last few days that has brought extensive flooding. The Met Office in the UK are suggesting that this might represent a UK rainfall record (we will see), but certainly the impacts are extraordinary (this is Cockermouth in Cumbria; there is also extensive flood damage in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland):

Image from Skynews

Image from BBC news.

The UK Met Office have provided this graphic of the rainfall distribution:

The images above are from Cumbria, which is the area highlighted as having the highest rainfall.

Unfortunately, there is more rainfall on its way. This is the BBC Weather forecast for this area at noon tomorrow:

Fortunately, this rainfall event should not be on a par with the last 24 hours (the Met Office are forecasting up to 40 mm over higher ground), when >170 mm of rain fell in some areas of Cumbria, but it certainly won’t help the clean up.

There are a few reports of landslides, such as:

• Train services disrupted because of a landslide between Carlisle and Penrith;.
• A landslide in Rossendale in Lancashire on Wednesday that damaged a packaging factory:

Image from Manchester Evening News