Central Europe’s devastating floods were made much worse by climate change and offer a stark glimpse of the future for the world’s fastest-warming continent, scientists say.

Storm Boris has ravaged countries including Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Austria and Italy, leading to at least 24 deaths and billions of pounds of damage.

The World Weather Attribution (WWA) group said one recent four-day period was the rainiest ever recorded in central Europe – an intensity made twice as likely by climate change. Scientists at WWA work out how much of a role climate change played in an extreme weather event by comparing it with a model of how bad that storm, drought or heatwave might have been in a world where humans hadn’t been burning fossil fuels for nearly 200 years.

The record rains fit into the broader pattern of how Europe’s climate is changing in a warming world. Europe is the fastest-warming continent. The last five years were on average around 2.3C warmer than the second half of the 19th Century, according to the Copernicus climate service. This not only brings much more frequent and intense heatwaves, but also more extreme rainfall, particularly over north and central Europe.

The simplest reason for more intense rainfall in a hotter world is that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture – about 7% for every 1C. This extra moisture can lead to heavier rainfall.