Scotland last month faced rainfall 41% above the average for July and the June figure was 60% over the normal level.

But that was swamped over the past two months by rainfall over England, which was 218% above the average last month, while June's was 233% more than the long-term mean.

Last month this led to extensive flooding in and around Gloucestershire, and during June much of Yorkshire and Humberside were inundated.

The unusually high figures are being used by WWF Scotland, the environmental pressure group, to develop a picture of the extent to which Britain's weather patterns are changing.

Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, suggested one downside of the poor weather this summer was that it provided an incentive for more people to take foreign holidays, with their aircraft increasing the risk of climate change.

England's rain in June and July was the worst on record for those months, but there have been 16 wetter Julys in Scotland since the current records were first kept in 1914.

The downpours followed England's warmest ever spring, while Scotland had its second warmest, beaten only by 2003.

According to Mr Dixon, a pattern is emerging of the weather that used to follow the jet stream to Shetland now hitting central Scotland.

"Temperatures were only slightly above average but the warm spring means that 2007 is still on course to be one of the warmest years ever recorded," he said. "We need to plan how to cope with greater flood danger. But more important is playing our part in reducing climate change emissions."