Flood warnings in place after Storm Bert hits

A man in orange overalls with a stick stands in floodwater next to a boarded-up property. He has his back to the camera.
The clean-up operation has begun in Hebden Bridge and Todmorden after flooding yesterday [BBC]

Five flood warnings remain in place across Yorkshire after Storm Bert brought snow and heavy rainfall to the region.

Flood sirens sounded in parts of Calderdale on Saturday, with river levels around Todmorden exceeding 2.4m (7.9ft) - 34cm (1ft) short of levels during the Boxing Day floods of 2015.

The MP for Calder Valley said a "relatively small" number of residential and business properties had been flooded.

Early on Sunday morning, 13 flood warnings were in place, most of them in Calderdale, but by 14:30 GMT only five remained as rain ceased and river levels fell.

Eastwood and Charlestown, both near Todmorden are covered by two of those warnings.

Sowerby Bridge, Horbury near Wakefield and Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire are where the other three warnings remain.

Melting snow coupled with heavy rainfall throughout Saturday and Sunday caused localised disruption, with a number of road closures.

Speaking on Sunday morning, the Labour MP for Calder Valley, Josh Fenton-Glynn said: "We're still wary because it's still raining, but it feels like we've escaped the worst of it.

"But here in Hebden Bridge we've been waiting almost a decade for a proper flood scheme to get underway, in terms of the hard infrastructure.

"Hopefully this will remind the Environment Agency of the need for that."

A flooded road in the dark. The road is illuminated by street lights.
Calderdale has seen the worst of the flooding in West Yorkshire so far this weekend [Oli Constable/BBC]

Flood warden Andrew Entwistle was involved in the clean-up operation on Sunday morning.

"In Hebden Bridge, the floods come very, very quickly," he said.

"It can look as if it's doing very well and then suddenly we get a surge and it floods the town."

A man wearing luminous orange and yellow overalls and a hat stands against the backdrop of floodwater along a main road.
Flood warden Andrew Entwistle said Hebden Bridge was prone to flooding "very, very quickly" [Oli Constable/BBC]

In North Yorkshire, police urged drivers to "consider whether you really need to make a journey" after three vehicles broke down trying to pass through deep standing water on the A65 near Settle on Saturday evening.

The force urged motorists not to drive through floodwater.

One flood warning is in place in the county at Boroughbridge Camping and Caravanning Site, where the Environment Agency said levels of the River Ure had reached 1.70m (5.6ft) on Sunday morning, slightly above the point at which flooding is possible.

A heavily flooded road with no cars on it. Traffic lights, which are on green, flank the road. The sky is grey and the trees in the background are bare and autumnal.
Burnley Road at Callis Bridge was closed due to flooding. [West Yorkshire Police]

A further 19 flood alerts, which are less serious than flood warnings but still indicate flooding is possible, are dotted across North, West and South Yorkshire.

Storm Bert initially brought a thick blanket of snow to the region on Saturday morning, but as temperatures rose this gave way to an intense period of wet weather.

Rain is expected to continue to fall across West Yorkshire until this afternoon, before giving way to a dry spell later.

A Met Office's amber weather warning for snow and rain, which had been in place across Yorkshire on Saturday, has now ceased.

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