Andy McKenzie, a groundwater scientist at the British Geological Survey, told Sky News that even if the rain stopped today, so much water is soaking through the soil that levels are likely to keep rising for another two months. The risk of flooding could remain high until May, he said.

According to the data from the British Geological Survey nine of the 14 boreholes in southern England are now showing “exceptionally high levels”. At Chilgrove House in Sussex the groundwater level at the end of January beat records going back 179 years.

And at a borehole at The Well House Inn in Surrey the extraordinary rainfall has pushed up the water table by 20 metres in the last two weeks. The British Geological Survey estimates 1.6 million properties in England and Wales are at risk of groundwater flooding.

And groundwater flooding was projected by scientists. ClimateCentral reported in 2012.

In a report released Sunday in Nature Climate Change, Kolja Rotzoll and Charles Fletcher predict that in some areas, freshwater bubbling up from underground could more than double the flooding caused by intruding seas alone.

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• Some of Wales’ coastal towns ‘face being abandoned’
• Climate change means we will have to get used to flooding