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.