Heavy Rain in February

For the first time in a long time February in Ireland has been characterized by very heavy rain and strong winds. Totals of over 5 times the normal have occurred in the Western parts which is well over a months worth of rainfall and then some. No wonder the fields are flooded and the water table is so high. Well this wet weather is going to continue until at least the halfway point of the month but after Valentines Day it does look as though as well as love being in the air a change of weather will be too.

There are cold Easterlies trying to gather steam against the Western juggernaut of the Atlantic. These may well get held up in England but it seems that there will be low temperatures and frost by night even if the chances of snow falling still remain uncertain.

Rain Gone Forever?

Where is all of the rain gone? This is perhaps the most dangerous question you can ask in Ireland. What usually follows is deluges and floods. It looks like there will be a significant spell of wet weather in February for a time but whether it will bring a month of above average rainfall is open to question.

The months of November, December and January have been very dry compared to normal with rainfall of only about 60% of what is expected. The figure for Sligo is 281mm of rain at present. Normal for the 3 months here would be over 420mm.

High pressure remains in place until February and then it slowly slips away allowing the Atlantic to exert an influence. What it could mean with the rain is some milder Southwesterlies so at last you will be able to turn that heating down.

Blocking High

The end of January has seen a lot of very quite and cold and sometimes frosty weather. It has not been nearly as severe as what we experienced in December but the temperature has still dipped to minus 7c. The coming few weeks see a cold pattern continuing up to the first week of February before the Atlantic once more tries to make inroads but it is too early to say yet how this will pan out. Overall models signal a low overall rainfall pattern for February continuing the drier than normal Winter theme. Since November 1st there has been 280mm of rain in Sligo whereas in a normal mild 3 month period this figure would be closer to 400mm. There has also been 41 days of frost while in some Winters there was only 10 to 20 days.

Image from http://www.wetterzentrale.de/ shows the blocking high that is currently situated over us.

Return of the Atlantic Weather

After such a long period of cold icy weather it makes us forget that our weather is normally so Atlantic dominated. During much of the year 2009 there was rain non stop and it is only in the past year that things have been drier than normal. Of course we have had some wet months in the last 12 like September and July of course but overall we have enjoyed many dryier than normal months of late.

This would seem to suggest that the Atlantic weather is not going to last and this would appear to be backed up by some of the models that are predicting a return to some cold weather by January 20th. This depends on a couple of Low Pressures and the Jet Stream but at the moment a cold spell looks like happening here. However it is going to be nothing like December and will probably just bring ice and wintry showers like the North and West of Ireland saw on January 8th and 9th.

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/