IT’S unlikely to come as a great surprise to most people – but the summer of 2012 has been the wettest for 100 years according to figures from the Met Office.

The only bright spot for Suffolk is that this county had the hottest spot of a miserable summer when the temperatures hit 32.4C in Cavendish two weeks ago.

Provisional figures for this summer show it is likely to be the second wettest across the UK in the national record that goes back to 1910.

Met office figures up to Wednesday show that 366.8 mm of rain fell across the UK during the three months of summer.

Despite yesterday’s heavy rainfall, it is not expected that rainfall this summer will exceed the 384.4 mm of rain seen in the summer of 1912, which is the wettest.

These latest figures follow a record wet April, and an April to June period that was also the wettest recorded in the UK.

August 2012 looks set to be the driest and sunniest of the three summer months across the UK with 105.5 mm of rain to the 29th August and 140 hours of sunshine up to 28th August.

Chris Bell, from Norwich-based Weatherquest, said August’s rainfall figures were likely to slightly higher than average – but would be nowhere near as high as the figures for June or July.

And there was some good news for those hoping for a pleasant start to autumn: “As we go into September things should settle down a bit. It won’t be all dry, but it should be a bit better than we’ve seen over the last few days,” he said.

Summer 2012 is also likely to be one of the dullest summers on record with just 399 hours of sunshine up to 28 August. This makes it the dullest summer since 1980 when the UK saw only 396 hours of sunshine.