A months worth of rainfall recorded in six hours in the East after the hottest June on record

A month's worth of rain has fallen in the space of a few hours, after the hottest June on record.

Lowestoft in Suffolk, England's most easterly town, recorded 55mm of rain in just six hours.

The average for the East of England for the whole of July is 56mm.

June was a particularly dry month having recorded just 28mm which is around 50% of the average for the East of England.

The very dry June caused the soil to dry, compact and harden producing an impermeable surface.

This causes rainwater to run off, instead of soaking into the soil and is partly the reason why flooding has occurred in some areas.

The weather system responsible for the rainfall was named by the German Met Service as Storm Poly.

This system also strong damaging winds for parts of the Netherlands causing felled trees and travel disruption earlier this morning.

The rain cleared early on Wednesday morning, before moving onto Continental Europe where the winds strengthened further.

ITV Anglia's Meteorologist Aisling Creevey said "There was a line through the region that experienced the heaviest of the rainfall last night, which may have woken some people up."

The image below highlights the heaviest of the rain over the last 24 hours.

There was a reading of 130mm at Mildenhall, but this has now been verified as incorrect.

While it is expected to turn hotter through Friday and into the weekend, a changeable weather pattern will re-establish for next week, with further heavy rainfall expected.

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