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.