Since October 28th there has been just 1.7 hours of sunshine at Heathrow.

The 12-day spell up to and including November 8th is the dullest at the airport since at least 1960.

If you look further back at other London records, including Kew – a record that includes the years 1912-1940 – there is no other period with as few hours as this year.

A look at the synoptic situation since the end of October shows an anticyclone drifting around the near continent giving us mostly dry, dull and misty weather while also perpetuating the troughs and convergence zones that have brought catastrophic flooding over parts of Iberia and the Balearics.

• Note that sunshine data at Kew was missing for the years 1941 and 1943 to 1946.