You might be forgiven for checking the calendar to make sure this really is August. The wet and windy depression this week is about to be followed by more rain at the weekend.

If it is any consolation, August 1912 was far worse. It broke records for the coldest, dullest and wettest August, in what was also the wettest summer on record. The climax came at the end of the month, when rain fell for several days before a deluge on August 25-26. More than 200mm (8in) of rain fell in parts of East Anglia causing catastrophic flooding. Rivers burst their banks and floodwaters surged through Norwich. Thousands of people were trapped in their homes and rowing boats were used for rescue operations. About 2,000 people were left homeless and four were killed.

“Enormous damage to crops, both of hay and corn, was reported and great quantities of hay were carried bodily away and washed into the sea. A very large area of land remained under water for the whole of the following winter,” reported the British Rainfall journal for 1912.

Norfolk became cut off as 52 bridges collapsed and roads and railways vanished under floodwaters. The harvests were ruined and the newfangled tractors proved useless in water-logged fields.

Shocking news: Britain’s a wet country

British summers weren’t always as wet as this year’s, but some were worse. 1912 was the wettest and dullest on record

Multimedia

• Pictures: 2007 floods

• Video: UK under water

BACKGROUND

• Water company ‘cleans up’ as customers clear up

• How to clean up after your home has flooded

• A disaster with mankind's footprints stamped on it

Related Internet Links

• The Times forecast

• Government flood warnings