Parts of the UK have been issued with wet weather warnings as heavy rain could see flooding and travel disruption occur over the next few days.

A yellow warning for rain is in place for southwest Scotland until 10am on Tuesday, December 12 while an alert for southeast Scotland and northeast England comes into force at 9am and lasts until 8am on Wednesday, the Met Office says.

A separate warning is also in effect until 7am for the entirety of Northern Ireland.

Disruption to bus and train services, power cuts and flooding of homes and businesses are possible in the affected areas, the Met Office has warned.

In England, 42 flood warnings, meaning flooding is expected, are active along with 157 lesser flood alerts, according to the Environment Agency.

Met Office meteorologist Annie Shuttleworth said: “After a pretty nice start to the week, things will turn much more unsettled across the UK for Tuesday.

What different Met Office weather warnings mean

“Rain pushes up into northeastern areas throughout (Tuesday) morning and then it will linger across northeastern parts of England as well as southeastern Scotland. There’s been a lot of rainfall here recently, so the ground is well saturated.

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“Behind that, plenty of showers are developing. These will push into parts of the Midlands by the middle part of the day and without much of a breeze they could be quite long-lasting showers. They bring a risk of hail and thunder as well.

“So a bit of an unsettled, unpleasant day for many, particularly if you get caught in those showers.”