Flood alert

ENVIRONMENT watchdog SEPA has issued a flood alert for Shetland as well as the east of Scotland on Friday, saying that localised flooding is possible.

Weather forecasters are predicting heavy rain moving north during the day with strong south and south easterly winds in the north of the islands during the afternoon registering around Force 6.

With the ground relatively hard after a short dry spell, SEPA are concerned that the heavy rain will prove too much for small watercourses to cope with.

Fair Isle-based forecaster Dave Wheeler agreed that it was going to be “pretty wet” on Friday.

In recent years August has often seen sudden downpours that have even caused landslides.

“It is one of the periods of the year when we do seem to get pretty heavy rainfall in 12 to 24 hours,” Wheeler said.

However he did not think there would be as much rainfall as three years ago when there was a major peatslide at Uradale near Scalloway.