Met Office weather maps turn blue as Brits brace for 830-mile downpours on Sunday

Met Office weather maps turn blue as Brits brace for 830-mile downpours on Sunday The latest maps from the UK's Met Office have delivered a bleak picture for the country this weekend, with a huge system of low pressure set to make landfall on Sunday A Sunday washout is on the cards for thousands of Brits this weekend as downpours cascade across the country, new weather maps show. The latest charts from the Met Office, the UK's national weather forecaster, have captured a mass of rain making its way across all four home nations. The showers, the maps show, will take shape overnight before making landfall in southwest England and Wales, where output will be a gentle 5mm per hour. They will gather steam throughout the day and eventually unleash between 16mm and 32mm (0.6 and 1.25 inches) per hour, for up to six hours in the worst affected areas. Typically, the affected cities and towns, such as Belfast and Liverpool, see around 75mm of rainfall in a standard September — so Sunday's downpours will be significant. The Met Office charts show the first signs of rain spattering over parts of South Wales and Cornwall from around 3am on Sunday, with showers moving up over Wales in the following few hours to 7.15am. They will remain calm on the Welsh coast as a much heavier band of rain moves up through St George's Channel and into the Irish Sea. As the rain moves north, it will come to completely engulf Northern Ireland, leaving no county untouched as it pelts the home nation with between 0.5mm and 30mm from 7am to 2.15pm on Sunday. The maps show the same system landing in Scotland at around 10am, with the full force of up to 16mm of rain per hour settling down on the southwest coast around Drummore and its surrounds. At this point, the rainy mass will have grown to cover nearly the entire length of the UK, a whole 830 miles lashing the country from Land's End in Cornwall to Stornoway in Scotland. The vast bulk of the system will take root in Scotland, with every one of the home nation's major cities at risk of heavy downpours. According to the charts, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dumfries, Fort William, Aberdeen, Jedburgh and Dundee could all see rainfall totals of up to 32mm per hour at points throughout Sunday. The rain looks set to remain anchored to the region until 8pm on Sunday. That doesn't, however, mean that the rest of the country is untouched by the inclement weather, with England and Wales seeing their fair share as well. Cardiff, Swansea, Caernarfon, Pembroke and Newtown in Wales will all see rainy showers on Sunday, as will Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol, Swindon, and elsewhere in Southwest England. London, Reading and other communities in the Southeast look likely to see some rain, but in more gentle, periodic showers. The vast majority of England's rain will likely fall over northern England, according to the Met Office maps, with the heavy shower misery hitting Preston, Kendal, Darlington, Newcastle and other areas around the same time as Scotland. However, the Environment Agency has issued an amber flood alert for the Essex coast from Clacton to St Peters Flat and the Colne and Blackwater estuaries. The alert states that flooding is possible before the rainy system arrives, between 11.45pm today and 1.45am on Sunday due to "overtopping and spray" on the coast. According to the forecaster's long-range forecast, the picture for much of England will be changeable over the next few days, with a mix of high pressure and "settled conditions" meaning rain is less likely as the period continues the pattern established over summer to remain both drier and warmer than usual. The forecast for October 1 to 10 states: "Higher pressure and more settled conditions look likely to build across across the UK, however it remains finely balanced whether this will become focused across the north or south. "Lower pressure and interludes of more changeable weather are likely at times, but again, there are mixed signals regarding where this is more likely. However, an overall drier period than average is expected, with shorter periods of rain or showers. "Winds are also likely to be lighter than average overall, but shorter periods of strong winds remain likely at this time of year, particularly across the northwest. Temperatures are likely to remain warmer than average."