EAST Lancashire escaped the worst of forecasted weather last night despite a yellow warning being in place from the Met Office. 

After three days of unusually high April temperatures, weather experts predicted thunderstorms and torrential rain would hit the county overnight. 

Although grey skies and rain have taken hold across much of East Lancashire, conditions aren't as bad as previously predicted. 

The warning, which covered the whole of Lancashire and much of the North West of England, advised of torrential rain and thunderstorms which were predicted to hit the county yesterday afternoon.

Weather experts also warned against heavy flooding, power loss, travel delays and potential lightning damage to buildings.

A spokesperson for the Met Office said: "Thunderstorms are expected to start breaking out from late Saturday afternoon over North Wales and will then become more widespread over northern England on Saturday evening.

"These will move north-eastwards overnight, clearing during the early hours of Sunday. Whilst some places will miss these storms and remain dry, where they do occur some heavy rain and lightning is anticipated and in a few places,  there may also be hail and/or gusty winds.

"15-20 mm rain may fall in a relatively short space of time with a few spots seeing close to 30 mm of rain."