What a July this is turning out to be. Temperatures below average, rainfall more than double the norm, grey skies blotting out sunshine – things could hardly be worse. Or could they?

It was only this time last year that we faced the biggest inland floods for 60 years. On July 20 a weather front dumped more than a month’s rain in one day on many places, reaching 147mm (5.8in) in Sudeley, Gloucestershire. Over the following days the Severn, Avon and Thames rose to bursting point and swamped a large swath of central and western England.

Gloucestershire was the worst hit. Half a million people were close to losing their power supply when an electricity substation came within inches of being inundated, only saved by hundreds of troops and fire service personnel working round the clock to build a flood barrier and pump out floodwaters. But a water treatment plant was overwhelmed and more than 350,000 people were left without fresh water for more than two weeks. Hundreds of small water tankers were brought in to supply water and the Red Cross distributed hygiene kits.

The problem was slow-moving rainbelts. Saturated ground and overloaded rivers could not cope with the deluge and the floodwaters spilled over floodplains. As Bob Spicer, Professor of Earth Sciences at the Open University summed up: “Floodplains are called floodplains for a reason – they flood.”