UK to be rocked by heavy rain and 70mph winds as Storm Kathleen approaches

The UK is set to be battered by heavy rain and winds of up to 70mph as Storm Kathleen approaches.

Wet and windy conditions are forecast to arrive on Friday, heading into Saturday, as the storm rolls in.

Travel disruption is possible as heavy downpours are expected across central Scotland, with a Met Office yellow weather warning for rain running from Friday between 2am and 9am.

The warning, covering the central, Tayside & Fife, south-west Scotland, Lothian Borders and Strathclyde areas, says there is likely to be “15-25mm of rain, much of this falling in around six hours with a few locations seeing up to 35mm overnight”.

Met Office meteorologist Greg Dewhurst said: “We have got heavy rain pushing north and east across the country through (Thursday night) and into (Friday) morning.”

However, he said that the rain will start to clear later on Friday morning.

“So it will start to clear (Friday) morning but leaves a legacy of showers, and then perhaps some longer spells of rain as we go through the day across the north of the UK.”

Despite the rain, there will be some warm spells of sunshine in south-eastern parts of England, with temperatures reaching up to 18C.

A yellow warning for snow is in place on Friday from the early hours through to 9am covering central, Tayside & Fife, Grampian, Highlands & Eilean Siar and Strathclyde, with downfalls particularly expected over higher ground.

There could be snow accumulations of 10cm or more in places above 300 metres but “2-5 cm of snow is expected fairly widely above 250 metres, with a chance that a few places within the warning area at lower levels could see a few centimetres settle.”

The forecaster has also issued a yellow weather warning for wind with a deep area of low pressure in western areas, including parts of Scotland and Wales, and the north-west and south-west of England from 8am to 10pm on Saturday.

Mr Dewhurst said that winds could reach speeds of between 60-70mph around western coastal areas.

“Winds pick up further through Friday evening, overnight into Saturday, where as we start Saturday morning we’ll see widely across the country gusts of 30-40mph,” he said.

“In western parts of the UK, inland, we could see gusts of 40 to 50mph and then around the western coast of the UK we could see gusts of sort of 60-70mph.”

Storm Kathleen, named by the Irish Meteorological Service Met Eireann, is the 11th named storm in eight months.

It is only the second time in a UK storm season that the letter K has been reached in the alphabet.