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