Mild for a time then Colder

After the coldest December on record in many parts of Ireland a lot of people will now be looking to see what January 2011 has in store for us and are we going to be pounded by more snow and Arctic temperatures again. Well it would seem that the cold theme will certainly continue for January but whether it will be of the bone-chilling variety that we saw in December 2010 is open to question.

It does look like some areas at least are going to see more snowfall during the month but this will be kept updated during the next few days as the nice mild weather that we have been enjoying slowly ebbs away letting a cold variable followed by a biting Northerly into the fold. This would place Ulster under the most danger of seeing snow and temperatures in the first week of January could dip as low as minus 7 at night.

Arctic Ireland

The map is showing the extent of the current Arctic conditions that are continuing to prevail in Ireland. Now it looks like St Stephens Day is going to see a band of heavy rain moving in off the Atlantic that will be preceded by sleet or snow and after a Christmas Max of only 0c the temperature on December 26th will reach 6 or 7c in the rain eventually. The current spell has seen all sorts of records broken and it WILL be the coldest December on record. The average temperature for the whole of Ireland is only -1.2c nearly 7 degrees BELOW normal. The minimum has reached as low as -18c in Castlederg Co Tyrone and -17.2c in Foxford Co Mayo.

Satelite of Ireland on 22 Dec 2010 courtesy of http://www.sat24.com/ 

Bitterly Cold Weather on Way

Ireland is in for a bitterly cold spell of Arctic weather in the next 4 to 5 days. It all starts off on the night of December 16th and it looks like it is going to wreak havoc with people's travel plans over the Christmas period.

Thursday night sees heavy wintry showers of hail sleet and snow with some drifting in Donegal but this will become more widespread over Ulster and some parts of North Connaught too later on in the night.

On Friday the snow showers continue throughout the country perhaps turning to sleet as the real cold from the Low has yet to set in. Showers will be widespread on Friday evening though and this could bring a lot of snow to many parts of Ireland that will still be on the ground come Christmas due to freezing temperatures.

Saturday and Sunday will have further outbreaks of sleet and snow and though some Met Services are saying it wont be as bad as the cold spell we had at the beginning of the month it will probably bring more snow to some regions, just not the record Low temperatures... or will it?

Possible Snow from Thursday onwards

Ireland is set to see a week that starts off cold but becomes very cold with some cold and Arctic conditions setting in and temperatures barely above freezing by Friday. Snow could become a problem by this time too.

Image from http://www.sat24.com/ shows a lot of cold and frosty air over Ireland and the UK as of December 12th 2010

Thaw Slowly Sets In -- Briefly

THE BIG THAW - is about to start this Thursday December 9th with temperatures rising significantly to 4c to 8c before reaching the dizzy heights of 10 or 11c at the weekend

Image from http://www.sat24.com/ shows snow cover for Ireland and UK on Wednesday 8th December.

Cold Weather Just Wont Go Away

In what has truly been a remarkable period of cold weather so far with a record low of minus 16.4c in Mount Juliet and Minus 12.6c in Oak Park in Carlow (courtesy of http://www.met.ie/) the cold weather shows no sign of going away at all during the month of December 2010. In fact frost could be experienced on most of the nights of December.

There is however some hope at least of a brief thaw period for next weekend meaning at least temperatures will get up to the dizzy heights of 9c before plummeting again in the period up to Christmas. At the moment though there may also be another brief milder period around the Christmas but it is very far away yet and the weather models have varying degrees of confidence over this issue.

Fr Fr Freeeeeeeeeeezing Start to Winter 2010/11

God its cold. Temperatures in some parts of Ireland have already dipped to minus 8 or 9c and we are only at the beginning of the cold snap realtively speaking. It looks certain that the minimum will bypass minus 10c without a problem and as I write this blog it is currently minus 5c in Carlow and it is 4pm in the evening. Yes on Sunday 28th November a lot of parts of Ireland id not see the temperature go above freezing at all and this looks certain to continue all the way up to the end of the first week of December 2010. So a cold start to the year and now a cold end to it also.

So what is causing this exceptionally cold weather. Well there is a Low Pressure over France and a High Pressure close to Scandanavia and they together are steering cold Easterly winds all over Europe and to Britain and Ireland. Its also noticeable that the East Coast of Ireland is seeing widespread snowfall for the first time in many years in November. Some people have been quoting 1993 but I have to confirm this I thought it was the 80s myself but whatever the length of time we are seeing some truly exceptional weather at present.

Finally as you are probably now getting tired of reading as much as I am of typing.. How Long is this Cold Spell likely to last... well Met Eireann are saying it will be December the 3rd or 4th and there may be a subtle change to milder (6c) conditions. Irish Weather Online are expecting the cold weather to last at least on and off for most of the rest of the year and they are dealing specifically in the Long Range Weather of Ireland and are quite accurate. Then of course there are the Model weather charts of wetterzentrale and they predict a cold airmass over Ireland for the next 9 days with perhaps some minor Atlantic interruptions. But with Arctic air it can last an eternity of weeks or months or be blown away in a matter of days by a deep Atlantic depression but currently the Atlantic seems to have blown itself out.

see http://www.weathergossip.com/ my own webpage for more as well as

http://www.irishweatheronline.com/ Long Range Weather for Ireland Online
http://www.met.ie/ Irelands Weather
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/ 9 Day weather charts

Storm Cometh

A seroius Atlantic storm is powering in from the Atlantic and it is going to bring Gale Force winds and heavy showers on Thursday to Ireland. If you look at the picture on the satellite you can see just how powerful this storm is off the coast of Iceland.

It is hoped that the worst of the storm stays off our own shores but this is looking less likely by the minute with some sites predicitingwind speed off the North Mayo coast of nearly 90mph.

Thanks to http://www.sat24.com/

Wet November

November has started off very wet again this year in Ireland with rainfall above 200% of the normal already. Fields and plains are already getting flooded. It looks like there will be a lot of rain or showers in the next 10 days too and it will get colder too so very miserable weather indeed.

There is also the risk of a storm this Sunday to throw into the mix so things will not be boring anyways. With the High tides on Sunday there could be a lot of coastal flooding but this is beared out hugely by the track of the depression and whether it slackens over Ireland as it is forecast to do or whether it pushes a few 100 km East of Wet of this path in which case there could be very strong and sometimes damaging winds.

Temperatures are going to start off in double figures but thereafter the will fall sharply to single figures and struggle to reach 10 degrees too often for the next 5 days. Some frost is likely on Saturday night so it can be seen that there is a total mixed bag of weather in store for Ireland.

Rainfall from Sundays storm could top 30mm but because of the speed in the movement of this system it could end up not dumpimg much rain in the North and West but it will slow slightly over the East and South.

October Ends Windy and November??

Previously on weathergossip blog... "a lot of strong winds in October". It did not really materialize did it. But as is oft the case with the weather in October it ends with a storm in a sandwich just like it is today, October 28th.

Back to the weather the gales and wind that are around at present look like they will continue until the end of the month and some steady rainfall totals look like falling especially in Munster and Leinster. Upward of 50mm could fall between Friday and Sunday in some parts of the East and Southeast. The Western half of the country and Sligo look like escaping for a change.

Whatever will November bring after all of this wind and rain. Well at the moment a lot more of the same looks to be the answer. Is it too early to say if the weather is going to be stuck in a mild windy and wet pattern for the Winter? Maybe this is going to be the case but the is Low confidence that a blocker of a High will try to push in around November 10th and should this intensify we could get frosty nights similar to last Winter for a while.

Credit must be given to some weather websites that I refer to and use namely http://www.met.ie/ and http://www.wetterzentrale.de/ These 2 sites provide us with a lot of the data we have on weathergossip.

October Winds

Certainly it looks like this October is going to be bringing a lot of wind and rain for the first 10 days at least. Temperatures will be on the mild side of normal too as the wind will be from a more Southerly direction. Night time frosts will not be a problem at all. High wind gusts are a low to moderate risk at present.

There is a series of Low Pressure systems that are gathering energy over the Atlantic ocean and will be passing between Iceland and Ireland bringing a lot of strong winds to both countries. This is a normal scenario for the early days of October but expect a lot of debris and leaves on the road. The debris will be mainly in the form of broken branches from trees.

As the month goes on expect things to quiten down somewhat but it will still be on the unsettled side. A monthly temperature for October of about 1degree ABOVE normal is predicted this year for Ireland by weathergossip. Rainfall will also be ABOVE the norm and Sunshine slightly BELOW.

Warm September 2010

Its turned out to be a very warm September overall with temperatures of 1.5c above normal in most parts of the country so far. Again the nights continue to be very warm or mild with temperatures rarely going below 10c.


The Long Range Forecast is predicting a mild end to the month after a brief cold spell on the weekend of September 24th. It would seem that it will turn out  to be one of the warmer Septembers on record though a wet one too.

Unsettled Weather on Way

The Long Range Weather Forecast is predicting a LOT of rain for Ireland over the coming weeks and it will be quite windy at times also. After such a gloriously sunny start to the month of September things will rapidly go downhill weatherwise.

Rainfall for the next few weeks is going to be well above normal and though frost does not look like being a problem in the medium term the temperatures are going to drop back somewhat. Highs of 18c is the best that can be expected and Lows of 9c.

Late on in the month of September would be the next window of opportunity for any good weather but it appears that Summer is now a distant memory.

Summer Review 2010

Summer of 2010 was by no means a scorcher but we did have periods of good and bad weather. The month of June was mainly warm dry and sunny especially in the West of the country. July turned out to be by far the wettest month of the Summer touching record wetness in some places and August brought a return of sunshine but not as warm as June, though the Northern half of the country had a lot more rain than those in the South.


Temperatures for the Summer have been above normal in general, very warm in June when it was 1 to 1.5c warmer than normal, just above normal for July when the temperature was 0.5 to 0.8c above normal, whereas in August the temperature has been normal or slightly below even with the return of some very cool or even cold nights. The highest temperature of the Summer wasnt even in the Summer and happened in May when 26.1c was recorded in Mount Dillon in Roscommon on the last Sunday of the month.

Rainfall has been below normal this Summer for the most part although some massive downpours in July have brought the figure up considerably especially in the West and Northwest. June was very dry all over Ireland with below normal rainfall and the land being particularly parched in the West and Southwest where the threat of a hosepipe ban was put in place in Clare at the end of June. However July brought about a change to all this when some thundery rain fell, especially around the middle of the month when Claremorris Co Mayo saw a fall of 56mm in one day. This was its biggest daily fall of rain in July on record. The country as a whole had rainfall in excess of 200 percent of the normal that would be expected for the month of July. August started off on a wet note too especially in the West and North but it has become drier and rainfall for the country as a whole has been around 50% of the normal. This also means that 7 of the 8 months in 2010 have been near to or drier than normal.

Sunshine this Summer has been well above normal, especially in the South. People in Sligo and the Northwest may disagree though and Malin Head had its dullest July since 1919. While it was dull in the North and West after a sunny June, the South of Ireland saw a lot more sunshine and sunshine figures here for the Summer have been over 150% of the normal as opposed to just above the normal for the Northern half of Ireland. This data is based on the prediction that the last day of Summer will be a mostly sunny one.

Summer's End?

So is this now the end of the Summer. After a day of some heavy blustery showers and cool temperatures it sure felt like it. The coming week continues the showery them but the long range weather is predicting some dry and fine weather for the end of the Summer. This is some distance off and is open to change but at present the end of August and beginning of September are looking quite promising with temperatures of around 20 degrees. A review of Summer 2010 will appear here at the end of August.

Rest of Summer - Weather Forecast

Ok the rest of Summer 2010, lets classify it as August really and maybe the beginning of September. However already in Ireland the nights are starting to get slightly cooler (6c in Claremorris on night of August 8th) as usually hapens in August. In the last few weeks the daytime temperatures have been very disappointing running slightly below normal in the 16 to 20c range. They are set to continue this way until the weekend of the 13th of August.

What is hoped will be happening at this stage is that a High Zone will pass directly over Ireland as it moves towards Scandanavia and that it will bring with it some higher daytime temperatures of at least 22c and maybe up to 25c. High Pressure zones are very static in their nature and tend to stay where they are during the Summer. On this occasion however storm Colin on the other side of the Atlantic is pushing the Azores High further Eastwards to Ireland and the UK. The High wants to stay where it is rather than go over us so it is forecast to split in two over the British Isles with one half of it establishing over Scandanavia and the other half reexerting itself over the Azores.

In the meantime whilst all this happens we will be getting a week of dry weather that will happen some time between 11th and 20th of August. After this the storm of Colin from the US becomes a secondary Low Pressure system and rushes up to Iceland and expands finally reestablishing wet and showery conditions over Ireland to end the month of August. September is forecast to start off cool and unsettled also though the end of August could bring a brief respite. That said if you are going on holidays the period from the 11th to 20th August would seem to be the last really warm period of the High Summer.

Summer Review so far 2010

So far Summer of 2010 has been quite mixed . After a quite dry start in May and June things have quickly gone downhill for the month of July. However things are looking to improve now for at least 10 days as an Azores High attemps to press some heat but how far North this comes over Ireland is open to debate at present. Some of the Long Range models show it coming right over Ireland or somewhere to the East and if this happens temperatures will respond and shoot upwards and we could see them in the upper twenties for the first time this month.

One thing is for certain is that there will be a lot of warm or very warm weather next week with sunny spells most prominant in the South and East.

Rainfall for the Summer is running in the High category once more this year due to the very wet conditions that have prevailed so far in July. The monthly totals are running in the range 150% to 200% with the West of the country worst affected. Though the June figure was a lot lower than average and it was the driest June in Malin Head for 71 years, the fact that it has been such a wet month in July has brough Summer rainfall figures well above normal. This wet July pattern has been in evidence for the past 4 Julys now but it does look like the rainfall figures will drop somewhat for August and weathergossip would seem to favour a normal rainfall for this month.

Temperatures the Summer in Ireland have tended to be above normal despite the weather not always being on the Sunny side. In June it was quite warm and sunny, in fact the temperature was nearly 2c warmer than normal in some places. The normal average temperature for June in Ireland would be between 12 and 13c but in 2010 it was between 14 and 15c. July has been slightly warmer than average with an average of 14.9c the normal it has been 15.3c so far this July and this figure is going to rise to about 15.6c by the end of the month. Overall the temperature will show a warmer than average Summer by the end of August its the Sunshine that will confirm just where Summer 2010 will lie in the Ireland Summer hall of fame.

Sunshine was way above average in some parts of Ireland in June and was above average everywhere. The percentage above normal ranged from 120% to about 160%. This gave people the impression that we were in for a scorcher of a Summer this year. Unfortunately the first part of July has been littered with some very heavy rain episodes and some thunder and lightning thrown into the mix also. The sunshine figure for Ireland for July up to halfway was 80% of normal in most places and this figure is expected to rise a few percentages in the coming few days to the end of the month. This will probably mean that the month of July will end with near normal sunshine.So despite all the rain we are having a pretty sunny Summer in 2010.

Becoming Drier in next few weeks

After quite a wet period of weather the general pattern in the coming few weeks will be for drier than normal weather everywhere especially in the East and South. The West and North should still have some rain at times but it wont be at the same intensity as it was for the first couple of weeks of JUly when over 600% of the normal rainfall was recrded in some parts of Co Mayo. Generally it will be dry and warm at times too but there will be a few low pressure systems that will pass by Ireland that will be bringing cloud and rain to the Northern Half. The temperatures for the coming few weeks look likely to be in the range 17 to 21c but they will be up to 23 or 24c in any prolonged sunshine and below 17c if it rains for a sustained period of time.

Dry June, wetter July

June is looking like being a very dry month in some parts, esp in the West, though the end of the month is going to bring some much needed rain for the gardens. Before that temperatures will be up to the early 20s for the next week or so with just a brief interuption on Thursday. It now looks like a Low pressure will move over us from the East toward the end of the month, while the High will be pushed out to the West. This could set a pattern of more showery weather for the month of July but watch this space.

Contrasting June

June has so far been a month of contrasts in Ireland with the West and North seeing much less rain than the East and South. In these parts the totals so far for the month have reached over 50% of normal on the back of a wet bank holiday weekend. The West and North saw more in the way of sunshine and very little if any rain in some parts of Mayo, Sligo and Donegal. Here the total for the month rainfall wise is only at 5%. The next few days promise some more rain for all areas though these parts of the North and West may escape until the end of the week when they too will get some rain. Last June started off dry in the West and North only to be followed by a really wet Summer but this year the medium range forecast is a pretty dry one with High Pressure moving in after 13th June, though a Northwest wind may bring weak fronts and mist to the North and West at times.

June starts off cool

After quite a dry May which could be the driest in some areas since 1991 we now head into June which promises a mix of warm and cold spells at present. The warmth seems to be signalled to the end and the cool weather will be more especially at the start. Precipitation amounts are quite uncertain as yet but it does look as though the Atlantic influence will return for a time unlike in May when we had an unusual ly quiet atlantic.

People looking for heatwaves like the couple of really hot days we got in May (26c was recorded in Mount Dillon in Roscommon and near 30c was recorded in the Southeast of England) may be quite disappointed. Apart from a few warm days here and there it does not look like a prolonged warm spell will occur for at least the first half of the month. Again we would hope the second half brings about a better spell of weather.

So to finish..May will for certain record below average rainfall, above average sunshine and temperatures slightly above the seasonal average. Not a bad start to the Summer season at all.

A Warm end to May

The month ends on a dry and briefly warm note with temperatures of up to 24c over this weekend. Then as the High shifts to the West of Ireland we see the return of the cursed volcanic Northerlies and the temperatures plummet once more. One advantage of the lack of a continuous stream of warm Southerlies is that the warm air is having little chance to influence our weather in the form of heavy and thundery rain and any rain coming from the North is being blocked by the High out in the Atlantic. It looks like the High will stay near the Azores for the start of June too keeping our weather cooler than we would expect for this period.

May Cool but getting Warmer

The cool weather of May and 2010 in general is about to be replaced in the coming week by some much sought after warm weather. Temperatures in some favoured spots will reach up to or over 20c depending on the position of the High Pressure. This warm weather looks like it could last into next weekend too. It will also have the effect of preventing volcanic ash getting near Ireland because there will be a South or South Westerly airflow in place.

Further ahead June is looking like it will bring both a mix of Sunny and Dry spells but also a lot of unsettled weather too at times with heavy showers. Temperatures should pick up in this month during any prolonged sunny periods at least. The normal average for June is 16c by day and 8 or 9c by night so frost is a rarity in Ireland then.

A cold start to May

A very cold start to May which is seen by some as the start of the Summer season. The Met Office though puts June, July and August as the Summer so there is no need to worry yet. 2010 has been characterised by a lot of cold weather and this looks set to continue for the first half of May with temperatures near to or below average. The temperature at night will be even less impressive with low single figures the norm on any clear night that happens to arrive. Growth is still lagging behind normal despite the fact that we are well into may some of the plants have only bloomed though a lot of the trees are at their late Spring best now.The best chance of any warm weather arriving in May will come towards the end of the month.

Very Dry April despite Volcano, Wet Summer?

It has turned out to be a very dry April despite the inconvenience caused by the volcanic ash on the flights in and out of Ireland. The rest of the month should not see too much rain and in any case it will be another drier month than normal. Since that very wet November of Last year we have had a run of drier than normal months. Unfortunately this does not bode well for the Summer although we are promised a lot more dry spells this year. However if an Atlantic pattern develops it could get "stuck" again like the last 3 Summers because more and more we are seeing that in the modern weather the pattern that emerges at the start of the Summer tends to be the one that remains for the rest of the season. Just for the record here is a record of the past few months weather.

NOVEMBER - EXTREMELEY WET 200 TO 300MM

DECEMBER - DRY AND COLD 50 TO 70MM

JANUARY- DRY AND COLD 40 TO 70MM

FEBRUARY - DRY AND COLD 50 TO 80MM

MARCH - SLIGHTLY WETTER 60 TO 90MM

APRIL - EXTREMELY DRY AND MILD 30 TO 60MM

Normally in Ireland after a couple of dry months we get a deluge. I am just afraid that this could happen again this year. The Donegal postman promises dry weather and Ken Ring is also promising a few good weeks. I just think that as I heard one forecaster put it "whatever May brings the Summer will bring the opposite"(who can forget the cold wet May of 1995) But to end on an optimistic note I think that we will surely get one good month in the Summer.

April becomes Dry

This April is looking like a decent month after a wet and windy start. There will be a good deal of dry weather especially in the first half of the month but temperatures may rise to spark off some heavy April showers. What the milder temperatures will do though is to geet growth off the ground once again as the trees are currently showing very little signs of any growth. The temperature during this 7 to 10 day dry spell will peak at around 17 or 18c. Recently in the past 3 Bad Summer years April has been good and the High has moved South to allow a jet stream of wet and windy weather over us. At the moment the jet stream is to the North of Ireland so this will be kept updated.

Dry March in Sligo

Sligo had a drier than normal March with only 54mm of rain. This was in contrast to most parts of Ireland that saw over 100% of their normal and parts of Ulster that saw half of their rainfall total in the last 3 days of March

Crazy March 2010

Well not so much but the weather that ended the month was very stormy and snowy especially in the North. Overall March was slightly drier than normal but continued the colder than normal trend in temperatures. However for 29th/30th/31st March there was more rain than for the rest of the month in a lot of places in the North. Nearly 50mm of rain fell in some parts of Ulster falling as snow and giving a depth of 4inches in Cavan and Monaghan and drifts of up to 1 foot on the mountains..

Becoming Unsettled

The Long Range models are showing a much more unsettled outlook now for the rest of March and April with the Atlantic fronts meaning a reurn to daily rain or showers. Temperatures will climb somewhat from recent values and will be in Double Figures much of the time. Rainfall will be slightly above average and the overall temperatures will be around the seasonal average.

Irelands Long Range Weather Forecast

Stick that on your power cord!

The weather for the remainder of March in Sligo looks very dry and settled. So far 2010 has been quite a dry year compared to last year and it looks set to continue for the first month of the Springtime. Temperatures are remaining quite low though and this is having a major impact on both Grass and Flower growth.

Rainfall for the year in Ireland would usually be around 250mm to 300mm by the beginning of March in the Northwest of ireland and the Daffodils would be blooming. However this year has been very different. Daffodils are only at the start of their growth as of 7th March and look set to actaully bloom at what was once their normal date of 17th of March here in Ireland or St Patricks Day.

This years rainfall total is only just over 100mm and the total rainfall figure for the Winter Metreological months of December, January and February in Sligo was only 182mm after a November with rainfall of 354mm. This was caused by the Big Freeze in January 2010 and the blocking Anticyclone that came with it.

High pressure was over Iceland and Scandanavia for most of the Winter keeping Irelands Atlantic rainbelts well to the West and North in the Atlantic. At times these rainbelts went to the South of Ireland and over France and Spain causing storms and floods there that we would otherwise have had.

How long is this dry spell going to last it is quite hard to tell at the moment but there is an interuption on 11th March 2010 and whether this will signal a return to the Atlantic Pattern of weather in Ireland after the 3 Months of very dry weather it will be intersting to see but the overall long range weather forecasting picture for the month would seem to suggest that dry weather will be more in evidence in March than wet and that any rainfall periods will be short lived.