HEAVY rainfall has sparked travel chaos on roads in parts of Ayrshire with flash flooding leading to closures.
As the Met Office has a yellow flooding warning in place, routes in and out of Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, were impacted.
Videos on social media show the extent of the flooding impacting the A77, as well as the A76 and the B730 at Symington, with flooding affecting the roads both north and southbound.
@BBCScotlandNews @WestFM @bbcnews @SeanBattySTV @STVNews Flash Flooding a77 pic.twitter.com/rDijWytV2V
— Stuart W Smith (@Stuart_W_Smith_) July 28, 2019
Drivers were being urged to avoid the routes if possible and to take care if travelling.
It comes as heavy downpours resulted in half a month's worth of rain falling in 24 hours across the UK.
Further warnings are also in place for later in the week as thunderstorms bring the risk of further flooding. Forecasters said that parts of the north-west had seen 40mm to 50mm of rain in about 24 hours, with 52.2mm recorded between 11am on Saturday and 11am yesterday at Greenfield near Oldham.
Meteorologist Helen Roberts said that the monthly average rainfall for the north-west in July was 89.5mm.
She added: “This is a lot of rain to fall in the space of 24 hours, especially given the rain has been very consistent and there have been heavy bursts within it.”
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s Floodline had seven alerts in place, with Argyll and Bute, Ayrshire and Arran, Central, Dumfries and Galloway, Edinburgh and Lothians, Scottish Borders and West Central Scotland all being warned of the risk of flooding.
The alert stated: “Heavy and thundery showers will develop across the south of Scotland this afternoon and evening, the heaviest of these focussed in the south-west.
“This may lead to localised flooding from surface water and small watercourses, and the potential for larger river systems to respond should the showers occur over these catchments.
“Built-up areas are at greater risk where possible impacts could include flooding of low-lying land, roads, properties and disruption to travel.”
South Ayrshire Police tweeted: "The A77(S) at Bellfield Interchange (Kilmarnock) is currently closed due to severe flooding.
"Road users are advised to use an alternative route and expect some delays. Please drive with care as heavy rain has made driving conditions dangerous on many roads across Ayrshire."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here