Flash floods as thunderstorms and torrential rain hit Wearside

Heavy rain has been falling intermittently since lunchtime today, Thurssday, June 11, and there are warnings of more to come, with a weather warning in place until tonight.

The Met Office is warning of thunderstorms along the entire east coast from Northern Scotland to East Anglia until 9pm this evening.

St Mary’s Primary School in Meadowside closed early due to severe flooding and there were reports of standing water in Hylton Road, St Luke’s Road and Rutland Street.

Washington has born the brunt of the downpour this afternoon, with the Cross Keys pub in Washington Village announcing on Facebook that it had been forced to close.

Two homes and Lambton Primary School have had sandbags deployed by Sunderland City Council staff in a bid to protect them from flooding and Washington Wetlands Centre has been forced to close its grounds due to water damage. It will partially reopen tomorrow.

Sunderland Fans Museum in North Bridge Street will be closed today and possibly tomorrow because of flooding.

And Environment Agency spokesman said: “There is currently a Met Office Yellow Weather Warning in force for thunderstorms across the region until 9pm on Thursday evening.

“Heavy and thundery showers could continue to develop in localised areas for the rest of the day. Where these do occur, they could cause flash flooding of roads and potentially flood isolated properties.

“We are monitoring the storms and associated rainfall closely and will issue flood alerts and warnings should these cause a rapid rise in river levels. We have carried out debris screen clearance to make sure rivers can flow freely.

“We would encourage the public to keep up to date with weather forecasts as conditions can change quickly and avoid driving, cycling or walking through flood water.

“We have a period of thundery showers along the NE Coast as forecast in the Flood Guidance Statement, this afternoon and evening and have taken appropriate precautionary measures where we have vulnerable assets in urban or Rapid Response Catchments, to ensure screens are clear and that we have teams available.

“We have ensured we have field teams available to undertake required work through to 9am tomorrow

“The flooding in Sunderland is very localised surface water flooding (mainly in the Washington area) and further localised incidents may occur given the forecast.”

Check your flood risk and sign up to flood warnings at www.gov.uk/flood.

Video: Kayleigh Meah