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.