The low pressure system that brought strong winds, heavy rain and flooding to large parts of the UK in September was the most intense to cross the country since 1981, according to the Met Office. The UK’s national weather service is forecasting that the bad weather is set to continue in the early part of October and has issued flood warnings for parts of the south-west and north of England, with rivers including the Wyre, the Eden and the Ouse at risk of bursting their banks.
While that is disappointing news for businesses and homeowners, pump hire companies in the worst affected parts of the country are experiencing peak demand as people fight back against the deluge. Chris Moeller, founder of online rental marketplace erento, said: “The extreme weather is tracked very closely by the number of enquiries we are seeing for submersible and centrifugal pumps in the affected areas. The city of York experienced severe flooding towards the end of last month and demand shot through the roof as people began the difficult task of cleaning up.”
Despite the heavy storms in some parts of the country, the Met Office reported that September was “by no means a record breaker” and was a fairly average month for rainfall. “Although the [September] storm was certainly unusual in that it crossed central parts of the UK, some parts of the UK have seen pressure systems of this kind of intensity many times before at this time of year,” they said. “With regard to the system which has recently affected the UK, the key to what makes it remarkable is that it has tracked over a wide area of the UK rather than those areas which are more used to storms of this intensity.”
