Water companies signal end to hosepipe ban Severe weather warnings were in place across Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Wales following torrential downpours which dumped more than a month's worth of rain in just 24 hours. The sudden deluge, which began in the early hours of Monday, wreaked havoc in parts of Britain, flooding homes, forcing schools to close and disrupting a hospital. And as fresh downpours drenched the south and Wales again on Tuesday, forecasts of further heavy showers and strong winds suggested there was no respite in sight, with up to five inches of rain expected to fall over the next three days. Weather Channel forecaster Leon Brown said: "Many locations in the South and Wales will probably have their wettest June on record." The wettest June since records began in 1910 was 2007, with 149mm of rainfall, followed by 1998 with 124mm. However, parts of Britain have had more than 100mm of rain already this month and things are not expected to improve until July. In Felpham, near Bognor Regis, West Sussex, flood victims used canoes to escape their homes while motorists were forced to abandon their cars. Firefighters rescued around 24 people from two flooded caravan parks in Bracklesham Bay, near East Wittering, using life rafts and seven schools in the area were closed. Emergency teams waded through water and used boats to reach some 250 vulnerable homes in the village of Elmer, West Sussex, where the floods was reported to be six-feet deep. An 11-hour power cut affected 500 homes in north Oxford after rain seeped through electrical cable casing and seven-mile traffic jams clogged the M3 in Hampshire when flooding closed two lanes. And in Wales, there were fears that the floods had washed out toxic lead and zinc deposits from abandoned mines, contaminating land, animals and crops. Aberystwyth University professor Mark Macklin said: "There are concerns that farmland has been contaminated and this could pose a risk to animals and crops. We'll take fresh flood deposits, such as silt, and they will be chemically analysed. We will, hopefully, have some answers in a month or so. The outlook was not good for the Wimbledon tennis tournament, which kicks off in less than two weeks. Stars including Andy Murray had their traditional Wimbledon warm-up delayed as rain hit the first two days of the AEGON Championships at the Queen's Club, London. "Heavy showers are expected in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and west Wales," he said.