The Met Office has issued yellow severe weather warnings as Storm Diana brings heavy rain and severe gales.

From 9am on Wednesday, through until 3pm on Thursday, various warnings are in place across the UK, including for wind gusts of up to 80mph that could hit western parts of the country

Heavy rain is expected in northeastern Scotland, prompting warnings the conditions may lead to travel disruption and flooding in places.

Met Office forecaster Aidan McGivern said: “A windy and wet Wednesday for all of us, a risk of gales for northern and western coasts in particular, but those winds coming from the southwest bringing much milder weather than we’ve had recently.”

Sweeping in from the Atlantic, Storm Diana was named by the IPMA Portuguese weather service due to its effects first being felt by the Portuguese Azores.

McGivern added: “The next area of low pressure is on the way for the southern half of Britain and that’s going to bring thickening cloud as we wake up on Thursday to some heavy rain. A tricky rush hour to watch out for on Thursday, it’ll be very wet and windy across England and Wales.

“There’s a risk if the low pressure deepens a bit more than we expect at the moment there’s even stronger winds developing across western parts of England and Wales. At the moment it looks like those locations will see 50/60mph gusts but there’s a risk there will be considerably more than that.”

On Tuesday hundreds of flights serving London airports were cancelled or delayed amid thick fog, according to figures published by aviation data firm FlightStats. The conditions also caused delays to trains serving Gatwick.