AS we enter the second week of July it is an interesting exercise to look back just 12 months and see what a difference a year makes when it comes to our weather, writes Mark Ching.

This time last year the Met office was reporting that June had been a very warm dry and sunny month with temperatures some one to two degrees Centigrade above the long term average.

Indeed the mercury had already reached 90F by June 12.

Rainfall had in many places been exceptionally below average and sunshine well above average, especially here in the south.

July 2006, of course, went on to become an exceptionally hot month with new temperature records being set.

In some places it was the hottest of any month on record.

Compare the above to the June we have just had and our current July. June 2007 has proved the wettest in some places since 1914.

The flood victims in south Yorkshire are still waiting for the floodwaters to recede as I write.

July has hardly started auspiciously - with heavy rain and thunderstorms in many places as a seemingly endless series of low pressure systems run in from the Atlantic.

Gone are the immovable high pressures areas of last summer.

The present pressure pattern that we seem to have got stuck in is more like something we might expect in autumn or early winter rather than summer.

Why have we seen such a difference in the start to summer this year compared to last year?

Well, the main difference is quite simply it is low pressure pattern.

During the early part of summer last year the low pressure systems were moving far to our north, thus allowing high pressure to build across western Europe and the UK and this dragged very warm air up from the continent during June, and particularly July.

This year high pressure has held sway to the north of us forcing the low pressure systems to take a more southerly track, sending them in many cases straight across the UK and bringing the copious rainfall that has caused much of the recent flooding in the Midlands and the north.

The paradox in all this is that with the pressure staying high to the north parts of northern Scotland and the northern Isles have enjoyed one of their driest Junes on record while the rest of us have been getting a soaking.

It is not just ourselves that get affected when the low pressures move on a more southerly track than usual.

In July 2002 we had a very wet month as the low pressure areas passed over Britain and carried on into central Europe where the heat gave them extra energy.

The storms this produced caused the worst flooding in Prague for more than 100 years.

In this age where climate change and global warming are very much to the fore, it is very easy to get carried away when months or seasons are quoted in the media as being the hottest, sunniest, wettest or driest on record.

These reports do not always refer to the fact that they are from a series of recordings that was only started in 1914. In terms of history, this is a mere pinprick of time.