Germany floods: More wet weather to come as thunderstorms push east
Short-lived torrential rain brought flash floods to southern England as central Europe faces an ongoing crisis.
Thursday 15 July 2021 22:16, UK
On Monday, flash flooding was seen in parts of southern England, notably London, due to a converging line of slow-moving thunderstorms.
They brought torrential rain, with nearly 50mm seen at Kew Gardens over a short space of time.
The convective nature of the rainfall - made by warm air rising and cooling and condensing - meant it was intense and short-lived.
Meanwhile the same conditions higher up in the atmosphere that led to the UK's thunderstorms took a slow-moving weather front across central Europe.
That in turn led to more persistent heavy rain, with local thundery downpours affecting western Germany, eastern France, Belgium, Luxenberg and Switzerland over the last few days.
According to the Met Office, 50-100mm of rain has been seen widely there, with Aachen-Orsbach in western Germany getting about 150mm.
There has been significant flooding, with reports that some rivers exceeded previous records by at least 2m.
There is more wet weather to come: 30-60mm of rain is possible in the next day or so for those central parts of Europe, but much less is forecast there for the weekend.
Further east across Europe, including southern and eastern Germany, thunderstorms will remain a risk for the rest of the week, with severe storms bringing the risk of torrential rain, hail, frequent lightning and strong winds.
Many areas will miss the worst of the storms, but where they do occur, flash flooding is a concern.
Warnings are in place.
By Monday, the south and east of Europe appear most at risk of torrential downpours.