By James Gregory
BBC News
Large swathes of the UK have been hit by thunderstorms and flash flooding in recent days, after weeks of hot and dry conditions.
There has been hardly any rainfall this summer, with July declared as the driest since 1935.
That all changed this week when the heavens finally opened, with one town in England experiencing almost twice the monthly average rainfall in a three-hour period.
But heavy downpours will have done little to ease drought conditions seen across much of the UK as it is the "wrong kind" of rain, BBC Weather presenter and forecaster Simon King said.
"The rainfall is not going where it needs to go," he said.
"When you get extreme rainfall – lots of heavy, torrential rain – some areas get huge amounts but other parts just a few miles away get nothing at all.
"The drains cannot cope with that volume of water – they fill up very quickly and they flood.
"What you need is rain in large areas, over a steady period and not as heavy."
Rainwater has also run off the surface of grass patches because of the dry conditions the UK has experienced this summer, the forecaster added.
"It's a classic flash-flood situation," he said.
High Beech in Essex saw the highest rainfall, with 64mm (2.5in) falling in a 24-hour period from Wednesday to Thursday, while Frittenden in Kent had 48mm of rain – 46mm of which fell in the space of just an hour.
Heavy rain in the capital also affected parts of central London, including Bloomsbury, St Pancras station, Victoria and Kentish Town.
Some shops and platforms at Victoria station were forced to close after flooding at the main entrance led to large volumes of water running down a slope towards the eastern concourse.
Further showers are forecast for the coming days, but it is "nowhere near the rain we need to alleviate the drought situation," Simon King said.
"Exceptionally low" river flows and reservoir levels caused by weeks of dry weather will also not be replenished by this week's rainfall, the Environment Agency added.
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