Heavy rain for Thursday

Heavy rainfall could disrupt traffic

Heavy rain is expected across parts of the Rochdale borough during the morning of Thursday (18 June) as the Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for rain.

This follows several days of thunderstorms, which are expected until the early hours of Thursday. Monday's thunderstorms caused some of the 'worst ever' localised flash flooding, affecting a number of businesses and charities:

• www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/135008/thunderstorms-cause-worst-ever-flash-flooding-in-parts-of-rochdale-borough

On Monday, the Rochdale weather station recorded 9mm of rain. The average rainfall for the month of June for Rochdale station is 77.8mm and for Greater Manchester is 79.5mm (based on 1981-2010 data).

A spokesperson for the Met Office added: "Rostherne weather station recorded 36.2mm of rain on Monday; it’s about 30 miles south-west of Rochdale. Given the nature of the weather i.e. scattered heavy showers and thunderstorms, it’s often the case that individual weather stations miss heavy showers and therefore don’t accurately reflect the situation and so it’s often useful to look at other weather stations in the area, like Rostherne."

The warning is in place from 3am Thursday until 12 noon the same day.

What to expect

• Flooding of a few homes and businesses is likely
• Bus and train services probably affected with journey times taking longer
• Spray and flooding on roads probably making journey times longer
• Some interruption to power supplies and other services likely