Clean-up after floods hit Greater Manchester
A clean-up operation is under way in parts of Greater Manchester after flash flooding left some homes under water and motorists stranded.
The Met Office said up to 15mm (0.6in) of rain fell in the space of an hour in some areas on Thursday afternoon.
People living in parts of Stockport and Bury were thought to be the worst-hit, with a number of roads flooded.
Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service said they dealt with more than 70 call-outs in two hours.
Spokesman John Aspinall said about 25 of those calls were for serious flooding problems.
"One of the incidents that we remained at the longest was in the Broadway/Wilmslow Road area of Cheadle Hulme where unfortunately due to the deluge the ground became very unstable and muddy," he said.
"We had a tree fall into a river which then - like a dam if you will - redirected the water out of the river and down the roadways and caused some chaos."
Bramhall Lane in Bramhall was closed for safety reasons after reports that cars were floating on flood water.
Several streets in the area became blocked by torrents of water and one local resident, Janice Evans, described the streets as "like rivers" after her son's car got trapped.
"[It was like] a very swirling, wild river. It was torrential."
"We went down about an hour later to retrieve part of my son's car and there were people wading in it and it was way past their knees," she added.
Flooding also caused the closure of an exit slip road at junction 17 of the anticlockwise carriageway of the M60 near Prestwich.
A severe weather warning was issued for the Greater Manchester region by the Met Office on Thursday.
By Friday morning, the Environment Agency said flood watches for the River Bollin and Mersey Estuary catchment areas were no longer in operation.
However, the wet weather is expected to continue in the region over the next few days.