If this month’s weather has come as a shock, worse conditions have struck May in the past.

Hailstorms of incredible savagery blighted May 1697. Edmund Halley, best known for his comet, recorded a barrage of huge hailstones on May 10 while he was in charge of the national mint at Chester Castle. The storm smashed roofs and windows in a trail of destruction stretching 85km (53 miles) across North Wales and northwest England.

On May 15 a hailstorm struck of even greater ferocity. A track from Hitchin to Great Offley, Hertfordshire, roughly 5km (3 miles) long, was hardest hit. Hailstones described as big as a man’s hand, reaching some 5.6in (140mm) across, crashed down. Crops were pulverised, the ground ploughed up and great oak trees split apart. Many people were injured and one person was reported killed, although it is difficult to believe that many more did not die under such an onslaught.

The rest of the year’s weather remained wretched. Another violent hailstorm struck Herefordshire on June 17, and the summer was thoroughly sodden. Severe frosts and snow-falls began early in November, followed by a savage winter. In fact, the 1690s were blighted by bad weather, possibly caused by a veil of dust blocking out sunlight after huge volcanic eruptions in Iceland and Indonesia.