A YELLOW weather warning for rain has been issued by the Met Office.

Heavy showers are set to break out this morning and afternoon with some locally torrential downpours.

However many places will miss the worst of the showers, but where they do occur there is a risk of localised flooding of homes and businesses and disruption to transport networks.

The Met Office's chief forecaster said: "Heavy showers breaking out today are likely to be slow-moving in nature, allowing some locally high rainfall accumulations to build-up from torrential downpours.

"Very locally 15 to 20 mm rain could fall in an hour and 20 to 30 mm could fall in two or three hours.

"Most places will miss the worst of the showers though.

"In contrast to the usual chain of events giving heavy showers and torrential downpours during the summer half of the year, the heaviest showers are likely during the mid to late morning and first half of this afternoon.

"Meanwhile, whilst thunder and lightning may accompany some showers, this is likely to be isolated in nature."

The weather warning is in place between 9am and 4pm.