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/ 

Bitterly Cold Weather on Way

Ireland is in for a bitterly cold spell of Arctic weather in the next 4 to 5 days. It all starts off on the night of December 16th and it looks like it is going to wreak havoc with people's travel plans over the Christmas period.

Thursday night sees heavy wintry showers of hail sleet and snow with some drifting in Donegal but this will become more widespread over Ulster and some parts of North Connaught too later on in the night.

On Friday the snow showers continue throughout the country perhaps turning to sleet as the real cold from the Low has yet to set in. Showers will be widespread on Friday evening though and this could bring a lot of snow to many parts of Ireland that will still be on the ground come Christmas due to freezing temperatures.

Saturday and Sunday will have further outbreaks of sleet and snow and though some Met Services are saying it wont be as bad as the cold spell we had at the beginning of the month it will probably bring more snow to some regions, just not the record Low temperatures... or will it?