THE Met Office has confirmed that we have just experienced the wettest June in more than a century in East Lancashire.

Downpours saw widespread floods across the area during the month. Provisional Met Office figures for June show double the average amount of rain has fallen, making it the wettest June since records began in 1910.

This is the second record breaking month of rainfall this year, with April also topping the rankings.

The period from April to June is also the wettest recorded for the UK.

It is also the second dullest June on record with just 119.2 hours of sunshine, narrowly missing out on the record of 115.4 hours set in 1987.

To complete the disappointing picture, it has also been the coolest June since 1991 with a mean temperature of 12.3 degrees.

Local weather watcher Roy Chetham said: “It was a terrible June. The coldest, wettest and dullest for many years.

“It was the wettest June in my records going back to 1973 and the coldest June for 28 years and the dullest for 21 years.”

A Met Office spokesman said: “Only the latter half of May saw a spell of prolonged fine weather.

"Movements in the track of the jet stream, a narrow band of fast flowing westerly winds high in the atmosphere, have contributed to the weather we have seen.”

In East Lancashire there were major floods in Darwen, Rossendale and Ribble Valley last month.