Flood alert as Shropshire braced for 10 more days of rain

Sodden Shropshire and Mid Wales were warned to expect another soaking this week – with flood alerts already in place on the region's rivers and forecasters predicting rain for the next TEN days.

Weather experts are warning today that there will be no respite from the wet weather this week with the risk of flooding likely to get worse as the downpours persist.

The warnings come as:

• Flood alerts remain in place at the River Severn at Buildwas: the rivers Tern and Perry near Eaton-on-Tern; and the Severn/Vyrnwy confluence near Oswestry.

• A Good Samaritan plucked a woman from the flood-swollen River Severn in Shrewsbury.

• The final water companies in the south of England lifted their hosepipe bans.

More than half an inch of rain (12.6mm) fell at Shawbury yesterday – the highest rainfall in the West Midlands – on a day when the county generally thought it had escaped the worst of the rainfall.

The woman was rescued after falling into the River Severn in Shrewsbury in the early hours of yesterday. A passer-by came to aid before near the Welsh Bridge in Smithfield Road just after 3.30am.

A spokesman for West Mercia Police said: "A female was retrieved from the river by a member of the public. We did attend but she was out of the water before any emergency services arrived."

Many homes in the south of England were left under water and one driver died when his car left the road after a month's worth of rain fell in just 24 hours in many parts of the country.

Hosepipe bans were lifted across Britain, bringing to an end the official drought declared earlier this year.

Matt Dobson, senior forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said England and Wales were unlikely to see any sunny weather during the next 10 days, although the forecast for today was more promising.

• Shropshire weather forecast