Flash-floods hit Dorset

Flash-flooding has hit Dorset this morning, leaving much of Bournemouth under heavy amounts of rain water.

Strong downpours hit the south-coast town at around 10.30am, causing chaos as broken down vehicles blocked access on the roads. Bournemouth town centre has seen the worst of the storms, amateur footage below showing flooding in an underground subway.
Local reports suggest that Castle Lane, Bournemouth is currently under two feet of water with parts of Poole also affected. Dorset emergency services have been inundated with calls as every fire crew in Dorset and Hampshire was either on standby or attending a flooding incident this morning.

“We have been forecasting a heavy downpour for a few days now and were expecting to get 30-40mm of rain over the course of the day,” said a Met Office spokesman.

“It was slow moving across the south-west into parts of Dorset and Hampshire, which has seen the worst of it. The heaviest rain is about to clear the immediate Bournemouth area but there are still some pulses of rain further north of that,” he added.

The Met Office expects no further heavy rainfall on the south coast as the spell is set to move to Scotland and northeastern England.