A YELLOW weather warning for heavy showers and thunderstorms has been issued for Dorset this afternoon.

A spokesperson for the Met Office, which issued the alert just after 10.30am today, said: "Scattered heavy showers and thunderstorms are likely to break out across southern parts of England early on Tuesday afternoon and die out on Tuesday evening.

"The public should therefore be aware of the risk of localised flooding. In particular surface water could lead to difficult driving conditions at times. Hail and lightning are likely to provide an additional hazard locally."

The warning is in place from 12.45pm until 8pm.

The chief forecaster added: "A deeply unstable airmass covers much of southern England.

"As daytime heating gets going, we can expect showers and thunderstorms to break out and to be slow-moving at times, given light winds.

"10-15 mm of rain will occur in less than an hour in places with some 25 mm possible in 3 hours or less. As is usual with these situations, some places will miss the worst of the rain."