Britain is being deluged by “atmospheric rivers” delivered on the jet stream, the Met Office has said.

Experts believe the west-east band of high-altitude winds is currently pointed directly at the UK for the first time in years, enabling a “conveyor belt” of non-stop rain.

This has been exacerbated by relatively mild temperatures that have forced extra moisture into the air.

It is causing streams of airborne water vapour around 300 miles wide approaching across the Atlantic before condensing into heavy rain as they hit hilly parts of Britain.

Last night meteorologists warned the UK is likely to face increasingly severe flooding as a result of atmospheric rivers in the future as climate change takes hold.