The last time the UK experienced a summer as wet as this one, the Bastille was being stormed. In rainfall records stretching back to 1766, only the damp summer of 1789 rivals the weather of the last three months.

Across Europe, this year is a tale of one continent, two weather extremes. As householders haul out sandbags in England, forest fires are consuming swaths of the Greek and Italian countryside. A similar story prevails in the rest of the world: New Yorkers were able to sunbathe this winter while California declared a state of emergency as the citrus crop withered under a cold snap. In Australia the longest drought in memory has persisted despite hailstorms, while the monsoon hit south Asia early and storms killed hundreds in India and Pakistan.