News / A month’s worth of rain in a day
FIRE CREWS in Shetland had a busy Saturday night as they were called out to several flooded homes in Levenwick and Cunningsburgh.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Services said all the calls came in within a very short time span at just before 9pm.
It follows some of the heaviest downpours of recent years, which saw Shetland receiving more than the average rainfall for August in less than 24 hours.
Landslides in Levenwick, Maywick, Weisdale, Heylor and at Dales Lees kept the council’s roads engineers busy most of the evening and into the night.
A spokeswoman for Shetland Islands Council said that the A968 north of the Collafirth junction was still closed on Sunday morning but was expected to open again later in the day.
The A970 at Levenwick meanwhile is passable via a single carriageway with traffic lights in operation
“Drivers should expect some delays while the road is being cleared – the road is expected to open fully later this afternoon,” the spokeswoman said.
A video from the severe flooding at Channerwick corner on Saturday evening.
Fire crews from Sandwick were called to a flooded property in Levenwick at 8.36pm, the same time Lerwick fire fighters received a call to the sewage plant at Gremista where they had to clear a culvert that was blocked by debris.
Meanwhile, crews from Sumburgh and Sandwick spent three hours pumping water from the A970 road into a nearby burn in an attempt to prevent houses from being flooded at the north end of the village.
And the Bixter fire crew was tasked to prevent any traffic crossing the Setter bridge in Weisdale after it become flooded and impassable.
The Met Office said that Fair Isle was the wettest place in the UK on Saturday with 128.4 mm (five inches) of rainfall.
On average Shetland experiences just 80mm of rain throughout the month of August.
While Sunday is turning out to be a pleasant day, forecasters warn of more heavy downpours overnight to Monday.
For an hour-by-hour forecast please check out our weather page at: www.shetnews.co.uk/weather/
Do you have any photos or video footage of the heavy rain? Please send them to news@shetnews.co.uk
Here is a link to a 10min long video documenting Saturday’s heavy rain.
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