rain

If you're checking the weather forecast for Britain over the next week or so you may be a little surprised by what you see. If you spot that ‘blood rain' is predicted for Halloween you'd be excused in thinking that someone was playing a prank.

However, experts are indeed forecasting that parts of the UK will experience a reddish coloured rain known as ‘blood rain'. Don't worry though, rather than it signalling the end of the world, it is simply a natural phenomena caused when rain picks up sand from deserts.

As a Met Office spokesman explains: "It is a rather grandiose term for fine desert sand particles that are whipped up by winds and mix with the moisture in clouds". Winds then carry the clouds over great distances, before the moisture is deposited from them as red or brown rain (though unfortunately not quite as bright red as the picture above).

In this case, we have the Sahara desert to thank, where storms have mixed huge amounts of sand with the clouds. Particularly strong winds are now in the process of blowing those clouds over towards the UK. However, before they reach us, these warm desert winds are expected to raise temperatures in Britain to as high as 20C (68F) over the next few days.

Floods devastated parts of Wales over the weekend and more are expected, as heavy rain continues throughout Britain. After one of the wettest Mays on record, the bad weather has continued into June, with torrential rain causing a number of rivers to burst their banks on Friday and Saturday.

Weekend of Floods in Wales

Areas around Aberystwyth near the west coast of Wales received twice as much rain fall in 24 hours than normally falls in the whole month of June. This led to floods 5 foot deep in the local town of Ceredigion and the leader of the County Council, Ellen ap Gwynn, has revealed that an appeal will be launched to help those affected:

"I've personally witnessed the devastation left by this weekend's flooding. It's heartbreaking to see so many homes damaged by the flooding and to realise that many have lost prized personal possessions that cannot be replaced. However, I hope that by launching an appeal we can assist those affected to get back on their feet as soon as possible."

Meanwhile in nearby Pemmal 600 people were evacuated from their homes after a dam was on the verge of bursting. After a drain hole that normally releases pressure became blocked, emergency services had to work quickly to build a channel for the water to safely flow away.

The British are infamous for the amount of time we spend talking about the weather, but if the last month hasn't given us a valid reason to then we don't know what would. It was only a matter of weeks ago that we were bringing you news that parts of Britain were officially in drought, but since then the country has been hit by severe storms and flooding. Whilst all the time remaining ‘in drought'.

The country was officially thrown in to drought on the 5th April, after the driest 18 months since records began. With March temperatures soaring over 20^oc, hosepipes were banned as experts predicted the worst drought in the UK for 30 years. However, ever since the drought was announced, Britain has been hit with a pretty much constant downpour of rain.

The Wettest April on Record

As April ended yesterday, vast swathes of the country have been left battered by the weather. Overall, the UK experienced the wettest April since records began in 1910, with some areas receiving a month's worth of rain in a particularly bad 72 hours. There are still 36 flood warnings in place, as well as 150 less serious flood alerts, and the wet weather is expected to continue well into May.

With Wimbledon taking place at the moment we thought what better way to describe what it is really like than to describe to you a typical day for a member of the crowd at Wimbledon. So sit back, and enjoy our light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek diary of a day at the famous tennis tournament:

8pm (the night before): Just settled down in to my place in the queue. It's raining a bit, but I brought a tent with me so I should be fine.

6am: The stewards woke everyone up and I've taken my tent down. Turns out it wasn't especially waterproof.