A major storm that ushered in the fall has lashed the U.K. with flooding rain and high winds.
At least four deaths were attributed to storm-related incidents, the Daily Mail website said on Tuesday.
Composite radar of the U.K. Met Office, as of 1430 UTC Tuesday, shows a broad swath of rain over Northern England, Wales, parts of Ireland and the intervening sea. Heaviest rain shown as yellow to orange. (U.K. Met Office website)
Homes flooded and/or evacuated numbered in the hundreds, according to the Daily Mail and other U.K. online media, as hundreds of official flood warnings and alerts covered the land.
A number of people stranded by flooding had to be rescued.
Roads were submerged, hitting traffic flow. Rail transport suffered disruption.
The storm's gales at sea whipped up high surf along the North Sea coast. Online images of coastal Scotland showed landscapes literally awash in sea foam churned by the waves, then blown ashore by the strong winds.
Torrential rain began Sunday night in the south and west, then spread through northern England to parts of Scotland and Ireland Monday and Monday night.
The highest rainfall since Sunday, 108 mm (4.3 inches), was collected at Ravensworth, North Yorkshire, the U.K. Met Office said. The site has a normal September rainfall of only 47 mm (1.9 inches).
Antrim, Northern Ireland, had 98 mm (3.9 inches), the Met Office said.
Data accessed by AccuWeather.com showed rainfall of 85 mm (3.3 inches) at Rhyl, Wales. Crosby, Merseyside, had 79 mm (3.1) inches.
While the Met Office, through its online blog, dismissed claims that the powerful storm was actually the remnant of the former Hurricane Nadine, it did allow that heat and moisture from the tropical cyclone could have given a boost to the U.K. storm.
Saying that the storm had a lowest pressure of at least 973 mb, the Met Office called the low "unusually deep for September. The last time a pressure this low was measured in September was in 1981, they said.
Surface weather analysis for western Europe on Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2012, shows deep low pressure over the Irish Sea. (U.K. Met Office)
Tuesday, deep low pressure at the center of the storm was over the Irish Sea, with rain spread across the width of the British archipelago.
This weather system, still capable of giving heavy rain, was forecast to remain strong through Tuesday night as it drifted south to Wales, then was to weaken while leaving southwestern England for France at midweek.
The storm could leave 25 to 100 mm (about 1-4 inches) of rain over a wide area, even locally 150 to 200 mm (about 6-8 inches) along the Andes, between Monday and Thursday of next week.
Rainfall for India as a whole in the period June-September 2012 was calculated at 93 percent of normal amount, according to the IMD. The rainfall outcome in 2013 will likely hinge upon events in the equatorial Pacific and Indian oceans.
Travelers to the region may need to pack some cold-weather clothes.
Soaking rains may have been indirectly linked to Tropical Cyclone Mahasen, which made an early Thursday landfall from the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh.
Tropical Cyclone Mahasen has necessarily had some say in the onset timing of the Monsoon.
Warmth will wax June-like in some capitals. Many others will experience the feel of mid summer for at least one day.
Jim Andrews
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