Environment Agency teams around Sussex are on full alert as gale-force winds and some of the highest tides of the year battered the Sussex coastline.

Traders on Brighton's seafront, armed with brooms and brollies, battled to keep the floodwater at bay as 30ft waves breached the seawall between the piers.

Seafront officers used loud hailers to warn wave-watchers, some of whom had clambered along groynes to experience the full force of the storm, to keep back from the sea.

Flood agencies are preparing for rising river levels with rain forecast throughout the weekend andw inds of up to 90mph predicted.

In West Sussex, the storms forced Rutherfords nightclub on Worthing Pier to close on Friday night.

Meanwhile, in East Sussex watches were in place on the Rivers Cuckmere, Ouse and Uck as agency officials predicted up to 12mm of rainfall during the next seven days.

Inland, there were flood warnings on the River Arun, and the River Ouse around Lewes.