DORSET has been drenched over the last few days but has mercifully escaped the worst of the torrential downpours affecting the rest of the country.

The Met Office put out severe weather warnings yesterday with predictions of an entire month's rain to fall in just one day.

But while it has hardly been beach weather in Bournemouth over the past few days, local weather experts expected only about 15 to 20mm of rain to have fallen by last night Monday.

Dr Richard Wild, of WeatherNet in Bournemouth said: "We've been fairly fortunate compared with other parts of the country.

"The heaviest downpours were on Saturday when we had 5mm of rain in just one hour between 12.30 and 1.30pm. Overall, there's been about 80mm of rain in four days.

"We haven't quite had the gale force winds that have hit other areas. The worst we had was 36mph last week, which is just below gale force."

Elsewhere, tennis fans were left waiting for the start of Wimbledon and well-muddied Glastonbury revellers faced difficult conditions on their way home.

In Hull, a man in his 20s lost his life after being caught in a flooded drain.

Two dozen flash floods were reported across the country, with schools closed in Lancashire and firefighters helping out residents in Devon with 2ft of water in their homes.

Temperatures in Dorset are a couple of degrees lower than usual for June, and there is little hope of the summer returning any time soon.

Dr Wild said: "It is quite cold for June and that will be a feature of the next few days.

"Things should improve slightly as we head towards the weekend, but there's not much prospect of dry, sunny weather for a while."