The remnants of Hurricane Ernesto are set to batter parts of the UK in the week ahead, bringing heavy rain and gusts of wind of up to 60mph.

Ernesto ripped through the North Atlantic this week, with maximum winds of 85mph leaving hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico and Bermuda without power.

Rain is expected in the UK from Monday, with Ernesto – now weakened to a tropical storm – is set to hit on Wednesday with further downpours and strong winds that will mainly affect Scotland, the Met Office said.

South Essex is set to be mostly spared from the remnants of the hurricane, the Met Office forecast predicts, with temperatures to drop slightly in both Basildon and Southend to around 20-21 degrees. 

The south of the county will only see light rain in the early hours of Tuesday.

Forecasters have issued three yellow weather warnings for rain in Scotland, with up to 150mm expected to fall within a 24-hour period in the worst-affected areas.

The warnings cover south-west Scotland and the Lothian borders region on Monday afternoon and evening, and north-east Scotland – including the Highlands, Strathclyde and Central, Tayside and Fife – for most of Wednesday and Thursday.

Met Office forecaster Craig Snell said: “Ernesto, at the moment, is still out on the other side of the Atlantic as a tropical storm.

“As we go through the next couple of days, it kind of weakens as it moves into cooler waters and gets absorbed into a more typical area of low pressure, which we kind of get quite often.”

He continued: “Because the tropical systems just have so much warmth and a lot of moisture in them, remnants of the warmth and remnants of the moisture will be still there in that weather system on Wednesday and Thursday, so it will enhance the rainfall. “