Lashing rain and fierce winds battered parts of Britain yesterday as ex-Hurricane Bertha swept across the country bringing disruption in its wake.

Homes were flooded, music festivals were cancelled and sporting contests had to be re-routed as nearly a month’s worth of rain was dumped over parts of Britain in just a few hours.

Heavy winds gusting at up to 70mph battered the country as the Caribbean tropical storm swooped across the UK.

It struck Cornwall in the early hours of the morning, before moving east and northwards thunderstorms with it.

Storm flooded properties in Kent and Norfolk

Torrential showers saw 40.6mm of rain fall on Cardiff overnight, while Wisley in Surrey was hit by 18.4mm of rainfall in just one hour, between 9am and 10am yesterday.

The number of Met Office flood warnings in force steadily climbed over the course of the day, with 41 in place shortly before 4.30pm in the afternoon and spanning all of Britain.

Meanwhile Met Office yellow weather warnings telling people to “be aware” of rainfall for England, Wales and Scotland have now also been extended to Northern Ireland.

Laura Young, a Met Office spokeswoman, said the remnants of Hurricane Bertha had hit and travelled through Britain as predicted.

The eye of the storm will linger off the north coast meaning the turbulent weather will last into this week.

Rachael Vince, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, said: “The main area of persistent rain is through most of Northern Ireland, across south and west Scotland. We had a line of thunderstorms running from northern Yorkshire down to the Greater London area.

“They developed and went out, but most of the southern half of the UK saw some thundery activity.”

The storm flooded properties in Kent and Norfolk while Humberside firefighters said they received a “high volume” of flood-related calls.

Photo taken from the Twitter feed of @hannah_rsmith with permission of flooding in Waltham, outside of Grimsby in northeast Lincolnshire, yesterday. Photos: PA

London’s St James’ Park endured 17mm of rain between 7am and 1pm yesterday, but the London Fire Brigade (LFB) admitted some flood-hit Londoners faced delays in getting help because of a strike by fire crew.

LFB said on Twitter: “Apologies if you’ve been waiting for LFB to attend a flood-related call. We are currently unable to attend because of FBU strike action.”

Turnpike Lane station, on the Piccadilly line through north London, was forced to close this afternoon because of flooding and Network Rail said passengers in the south of England had faced delays after bad weather caused flooding at Fulwell station in south-west London, and a tree to blow on to the track on the Henley train line.

Organisers had to postpone the prestigious Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race, which was due to kick off in Cowes on the Isle of Wight yesterday. It will set sail at 9am today instead, to allow the stormy weather to subside.

The last day of the Boardmasters music and surfing festival in Cornwall was axed while Brittany Ferries said it had cancelled its four fast-craft catamaran services between Portsmouth and Le Havre and Cherbourg in France yesterday.

But fears of widespread flooding and evacuations appeared not to materialise. The Red Cross had mobilised hundreds of volunteers who are on standby to help anyone affected by the storm, but did not need to deploy them.