expected to ease off until the weekend, forecasters at the US Naval Oceanography Command Facility said yesterday.

A weather system which affected the US East Coast yesterday is now heading towards Bermuda and is expected to bring more showers and thunderstorms by Friday.

More than double the normal amount of rainfall has been recorded -- and the month is not even over, a forecaster said. Some two and a half inches of rain fell yesterday alone.

But there have been no reports of floodings and few mishaps due to the foul weather.

Other than the near sinking of a visiting yacht late on Tuesday night, a Harbour Radio spokesman said that, "surprisingly'' nothing else had gone wrong.

The Fire Service, which helped pump out the yacht, earlier on had to return to Tornado-struck Bob's Valley Lane in Somerset.

A tarpaulin covering a home that lost its roof in last week's freak twister had blown off in the rain storm, a spokesman said.

The rainfall earlier this week was the result of an "unusual'' weather system, the forecaster said.

"A low pressure was sitting right on top of us, swirling around and dumping line after line of showers. Usually such a system dies out and is gone within a day. But this one has been sitting there going on three days now,'' he said.

The forecaster said the low pressure would probably be pushed off by the approaching weather system, which is not expected to linger.

"Partly sunny skies are expected for the weekend,'' he noted.

Almost seven inches of rain has fallen so far. Normally around 3.5 inches of rain falls in April.

The record for the month is 8.6 inches, which fell in April 1984.