Alert – Posing up a Storm! Revellers smile for pictures as they brave Storm Babet to enjoy a good night out

Students in Leeds braved the cold, wind and rain yesterday in the early hours of the morning as they refused to let Storm Babet spoil their night out. 

Yellow and amber warnings in place across large swathes of England have been lifted save for a yellow ‘be aware’ alert for wind that stretches from Whitby in Yorkshire all the way up to Aberdeen. 

Those hitting the town were forced to use their jackets as makeshift umbrellas as they huddled together for shelter. 

Partygoers were pictured wearing summery clothing – from shorts and skirts to crop tops and bodycon dresses as they flocked to bars and pubs.

Some determined revellers even walked around the streets of the northern city with broken umbrellas as they got caught up in the rainy weather conditions. 

One women – who opted to wear a pink bandeau top, shirt co-ord and heels – was pictured smiling and throwing her hands in the air.

Flood warnings remain: across England, there were over 353 warnings and 248 alerts on Saturday morning, while 55,000 people were left without power on Friday; 45,000 of those were reconnected last night, the Energy Networks Association said.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency says it has 12 flood alerts, 17 flood warnings and five severe flood warnings in place; 25 flood alerts and 12 warnings have been issued by Natural Resources Wales.

A yellow Met Office alert for rain remain in place for most of central and north-eastern Scotland, with amber rain warnings across Highland Perthshire and the eastern Highlands north of Inverness. 

The forecaster said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, the highest rainfall total on Friday was 84mm in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

Met forecaster Jonathan Vautrey told the PA news agency: ‘The focus of the rainfall from Saturday shifts back northwards over towards eastern and northern Scotland.

‘Some parts of those areas have seen about a month and a half’s worth of rain already, but there’s another band that’s forecast to track its way northwards over the course of the night and push its way towards relatively similar areas.

‘So there are further red and amber rain warnings in force for Saturday, with the potential to push those areas close towards two months of rain in the span of three days.’

Mr Vautrey said the yellow wind warning across eastern Scotland and north-east England could bring ‘gales in excess of 60-70 miles per hour’, but added: ‘That is going to work its way off (the coast) throughout Saturday, so from a wind aspect there will be some improvement.’

The storm has claimed the lives of three people since Thursday including two in Angus, Scotland: a 57-year-old woman who died after being swept into a river and a 56-year-old man in the region who was killed by a falling tree that struck his van.

A man in his 60s died after getting caught in fast-flowing flood water in Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire on Friday; police found his body two hours after he disappeared under the water.

Elsewhere, Storm Babet has wrought chaos, grinding train services to a halt as railway lines were flooded and roads were waterlogged, submerging vehicles in the streets. Roads across the country are dotted with abandoned and flooded cars.

In Nottinghamshire, fire and rescue service staff came to the aid of four people trapped on the roof of their car after it got stuck in flood waters in Trowell, a few miles west of Nottingham. 

A ‘major incident’ has been declared in Derbyshire where footage showed a school bus flooding as screaming schoolchildren pull their legs up onto their seats.

Moments before the water gushes in, one pupil can be seen gesturing to the others to move up to the higher deck of the bus. The children’s screams of terror increase as the water rises and one shouts: ‘No, no, no, no.’ 

Yesterday, Derbyshire Fire and Rescue urged people not to travel, adding that it had rescued 60 people after floods occurred in Brampton, Chesterfield with residents moved to a rescue centre.

Flooding caused 70-minute delays on the A1 near Grantham on Friday, National Highways said, while further south, Suffolk declared a major incident as Storm Babet caused “major flooding” across the county.

The rural village of Debenham was cut off by flooding, residents said, while tractors were being used to rescue people caught in the flood water.

Around 50 people were sheltering in the local leisure centre there and sleeping on crash mats, staff said.

Elsewhere fire services in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire shared pictures on X of vehicles semi-submerged in water after drivers were rescued.

Storm Babet even caused passengers on a Tui flight had to be evacuated from a plane at Leeds Bradford Airport after it came off the runway as it landed.

Flight TOM3551, which departed from Corfu just after 12.30pm local time (10.30am BST), was attempting to land at the airport in strong winds when the Boeing 737-800 slipped off the tarmac and was left stranded on the grass.

The airport’s emergency siren is understood to have activated when the aircraft careered off the runway upon landing at around 1.53pm BST. Witnesses described it as a ‘hard landing’.

There were no reports of any injuries, operator Tui said.

Malcolm Fell, who was on the flight, described the incident as ‘a little bit dramatic’ but everyone onboard was ‘quite calm’. 

Recalling his experience, he said: ‘The plane came down and the pilot applied reverse thrust on the brakes and it started to aquaplane,’ adding ‘it seemed to speed up rather than slow down’.

‘My wife, [who] was sat next to me, turned to me and said I think you better brace yourself because this is not going to stop. 

‘And then all of a sudden…we were at a standstill on the grass,’ he said.