Dorset was hit with strong winds and driving rain overnight causing flooding and downed trees. Heavy rain hit Dorset overnight along with winds gusting over 30mph.
The Metoffice issued a yellow warning for Friday night warning of heavy rain and winds.
A number of issues occurred overnight causing disruption to roads, homes and businesses. Flooding occurred on the Monkey’s Jump roundabout, trees fell on routes across the county including the A35 puddletown bypass leading to a temporary closure. A passing tree surgeon assisted Dorset Police with the clear up of this tree.
Flood alerts were issued for Weymouth Harbour, Upper Frome and tributaries. A flood warning was also issued for Preston Beach with public being advised to stay clear of Preston Beach road.
Power disruption occurred across parts of Poundbury and Charminster. We spoke to Scotish and Southern Elecgtricity at the time of the disruption.
“We are aware of the short power cuts affecting your area. This is called an auto re-closure. An auto re-closure is a piece of safety equipment on our main network. The reason for your power going on and off is because something may have touched one of our overhead lines. The most likely causes are tree branches, wildlife or even strong winds coming in contact with our overhead wires. You may notice that your power will come on very soon, the reason for this is that our network will automatically try to re-power the affected area straight away. If the safety equipment still detects something on the wire, the power will stay off until our engineers get to site and investigate. This is all for safety reasons and to prevent further damage to our network.”
SSE appologised for the disruption caused.
Heavy rain is set to continue over the weekend.
Pictures courtesy of @sc_caped on Twitter, which show the downed tree on the A35.
