Weather warning as thunderstorms cause severe floodingon August 9, 2021 at 7:30 pm

Heavy showers and thunderstorms are causing severe flooding and travel disruption across Scotland.

A Met Office yellow weather warning covering Central, Tayside and Fife, Grampian, South West Scotland, Lothian, Borders and Strathclyde runs to 23:00.

Rail services have been affected by the torrential downpours and road users are being urged to exercise care.

Footage on social media captured the impact of the extreme weather in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency currently has nine flood alerts in place.

Met Office spokesman Oli Claydon described the thunderstorms as “quite variable” and added: “Not everywhere within those warning areas will see those heavy thundery downpours.

“Where the thunderstorms do fall, the rain could be quite intense and quite heavy.”

Shoppers in Glasgow city centre were among those caught up in the extreme weather, which caused extensive flooding in a TK Maxx store after a ceiling collapsed.

Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, footage shared on social media captured flooding at Cameron Toll and on Meadow Place Road, Corstorphine.

ScotRail said the heavy rain had flooded the railway at Dalmuir in West Dunbartonshire for the second time in three days, forcing the closure of the line via Yoker.

As a result, services from Motherwell, Whifflet, Larkhall and Cumbernauld will be affected while trains from Helensburgh to Edinburgh will be diverted via Singer.

Separately, flooding between Hillfoot and Bearsden meant services were unable to operate to and from Milngavie.

Earlier on Monday, train speed restrictions were in place in Edinburgh, between Aberdeen and Inverness and between Dunkeld/Birnam and Blair Atholl.

The Met Office said parts of Scotland could see 15-30mm of rainfall in a short space of time, or as much as 50-70mm over several hours.

It follows a weekend of downpours in which the worst washouts were in southern Scotland and northern England.