Bertha still threatens a rainy Sunday

A rainstorm in the Atlantic that was once Hurricane Bertha has prompted the Met Office to release a severe weather warning for Sunday.

Despite reports that the storm would ravage the South of England, Bertha has been downgrading in severity since it left the Bahamas, becoming a ‘tropical storm’, and then an ‘Atlantic storm’.

By the time it reaches the South West, if indeed it does, it is likely to be just another wet and windy Sunday.

However, there is a chance that the rain will be heavy and accompanied by strong winds, bringing a chance of flooding. The Met Office’s warning shows that they have currently extrapolated a 60% chance that the storm will sweep through the South West.

However, Eddy Carroll, the Met Office's chief operational meterologist, states that there is “a lot of uncertainty about the forecast”, and that it was “likely that the area of risk will change over the coming days”.

“It was a hurricane once upon a time” he says, “but now it’s just a mid latitude depression”, which is probably also an apt description of Devon readers’ mood since Wednesday, knowing that the weekend will likely be wet.

The advice being given is to stay tuned to the Met Office website for further updates, and prepare for Bertha’s arrival on Sunday. You won’t see any hurricanes, but you might have strong wind and heavy downpours.