Britain has braced itself for a second day of storms today.

As householders cleared up the floods and damage caused by yesterday's gales, forecasters predicted more of the same.

The Met Office issued a severe gale warning for much of Britain from 9pm tonight until tomorrow afternoon.

The storms are expected to strike further north than yesterday, with further disruption to transport and power supplies possible.

Stephen Davenport, a senior forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "There will be more heavy winds, this time across Northern Ireland, southern Scotland, northern England and North Wales, with gusts of more than 70mph expected.

"There will also be gales then in the south and south west."

Early this morning the Environment Agency had one severe flood warning for the coast around Chichester harbour on the South Coast.

There were also seven flood warnings and 68 less urgent flood watches in place for England and Wales.

The West Country and South Wales bore the brunt of winds gusting at up to 95mph that roared in from the Atlantic in the early hours of yesterday morning.

Travellers by sea, air, rail and road faced delays and thousands of homes lost electricity as trees crashed down on power lines.

Insurers said the cost of such a storm - the strongest of the winter in southern Britain - could run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

The storm sweeping through Britain has caused travel chaos - accidents caused lane closures on the A27 in West Sussex and on the A13 in Essex. The Tamar Bridge which links Devon and Cornwall at Plymouth, was closed to high-sided vehicles, caravans and motorcycles.

A vehicle fire added to problems on an always-busy stretch of the M1 in Hertfordshire.

Have you been driving in the storms? Let us know on the Auto Trader Blog.