THIS was the scene as gutters and drains overflowed, water swirled two feet deep in the street and wheelie bins floated along the roads yesterday lunchtime as a month’s worth of rain fell in a matter of minutes.

Portslade village was the site of extraordinary scenes at 1pm yesterday as residents piled sandbags against their front doors and parked cars were washed out of position by traffic trying to navigate deep standing water.

The storm had been forecast - a yellow weather warning had been issued for the area - but the torrential rain was so localised that it overwhelmed several streets near The George pub in Portslade, while roads a mile away saw only drizzle.

Jake Snow, 16, of South Street in Portslade, had not long returned from his English Language GCSE exam when the heavens opened. He leapt out of his front door and dragged sandbags into place.

He said: “I’d just got home from school so I grabbed the sandbags when I saw how heavy the rain was. But then it just got higher and higher.”

He indicated the high-water-mark on the white fence to The Argus, which showed flood waters had reached a height of almost two feet above street level.

“That’s why I had to stop putting sandbags out,” he said. “There was too much coming in the house.”

His mother Catriona told The Argus: “It got in under the door and into the hallway and around the house so the patio and the base of the house and the hallway are all filthy, there’s leaves and dirt and dust everywhere.

“It’s happened a few times in this village that we’ve been under but we were lucky this time because of Jake.”

The Brighton and Hove area can usually expect 1.8in (45mm) of rain in the month of June, but the Met Office forecast for yesterday afternoon, which warned of a “risk of 20mm [of rain] of more in an hour and 50mm in a few hours,” was borne out by events.

Hove firefighters were called to floods in Portslade at South Street, Drove Road, and Valley Road where a van was trapped in water.

Sussex Police closed part of the A270 at Portslade, close to Mayberry Garden Centre, after the road had become flooded.