Mild February 2012

February was the mildest since 1989 in some parts of Ireland and driest since 2006.


Temperatures were 2c above normal.

April Weather Forecast for Ireland

April 2010 is predicted to be a month that will have a wet start and a dry middle and a wet end. The warmest weather will occur in the middle of the month when the temperatures could reach 17 or 18c in some places but overall for the whole month it will have been described as a showery month and a month that had quite a few wet days. Temperatures should recover somewhat from what they are now and growth should soon kick in good and proper. They will be near average or slightly above but rainfall will be above normal too due to the heavy nature of the rain or showers that do occur in the omnth. There is certainly no proplonged spell of dry weather on the horizon yet but by April 8th things will start to improve as the promised mid-month high tries to get a grip over Ireland. This will last a week to 10 days before a breakdown to showery conditions for the last part of the month.

March was cold

A colder than normal March in all parts of Ireland with temperatures just 1c below the average for the time of year. Rainfall was also below the expected amount for the month running at about 80per cent overall throughout the country. There was a lot of frost at the start of March and then there was snowfall at the end of the month. Tuesday 30th March turned out to be the windiest day of the month with one of the worst storms of perhaps the whole Winter bringing winds of up to 52knots to Malin Head, most of the North and West were battered by wind speeds in the variance of 45 to 50knots and this coupled with the heavy snow in the North and the Midlands brought power lines down and caused a loss of power for up to 50,000 homes in the North for up to 2 days. There was alos a lot of sunshine too in the month and the sunshine hours have been above average for the month overall in Ireland. Average temperatures ranged from 4.5c to 5.6c and the warmest temperature for the month was 15c which was reached in the Dublin area on St Patricks day.

Cold Winter 9/10

What a cold Winter it has been and we may not be out of the woods yet with Met Eireann promising more in the way of Wintry showers of Hail Sleet and Snow on the Mountains this week. The Spring has not sprung into action at all this year and we may well have to wait until well into March to see our first decent spell of Spring weather. Temperatures for 2010 are running well below normal. Around the Claremorris region the yearly average is 2.6c it should be nearly 5c and in Dublin it is 2.2c and it should be 4.4c

COLD TIMES INDEED

Very Mild October Everywhere

October 2009 was a very mild and quite pleasant month in all parts of Ireland with temperatures regularly in the midteens. At times particularly near the end of the month the temperatures hit the high teens. Sligo had a temperature of 17c in October while parts of the East and Southeast saw 19c. These are more typical of temperatures from June or July. As far as rainfall was concerned it was quite low in the First half but more plentiful in the second part of the month with the South and East enduring a couple of days of Heavy Rain near the end. The North and West escaped the worst of this and rainfall was below normal in these parts.

COLDEST NIGHTS IN IRELAND - the reason

So far in Sligo the coldest night of the Autumn/Winter season occurred on October 12th last. The temperature dipped to 6.4c which is nothing spectacular really. weathergossip will be keeping an eye on these figures. Oh, also so far the coldest night in any met eireann weather station has been minus (yes minus)0.7c at Mullingar Weather Station on 6th October. Why is it so cold here I hear you ask?

It has all to do with the Atlantic influence that places like Sligo benefit from in Winter that keep temperatures relatively high as opposed to the Eastern side of Ireland due to the build up of cloud that we get along the Atlantic. The flipside of this is that we also experience a lot more rain than the East 90% of the time. In Summertime the downside also is that the cloud spilling in from the Atlantic leaves temperatures relatively low especially in the Northwest. This Summer it was 16c here in Sligo a lot of the same days that it was 19c in Kilkenny for example.

So back to the coldest night of the year so far. It is not exceptional nor will it be probably. Last Winter for example the coldest night in Sligo was minus 4.2c but of course the weathergossip weather station only recorded a low of minus 1.4c. This is due to the fact that it is located in the back garden of my house and if it were to be removed to the front it is feared that it may not be as safe there. So at times the minima can be a bit minimalistic but I will let you know when they are out.

By searching the link http://www.weathergossip.blogspot.com/ a longer range picture of the Winter is beginning to emmerge and (thats not how you spell emmerge is it) and the dryness and benigness of the Autumn has become apparent. You may remember that weathergossip predicted the Autumn to be dry some months back. We told you that from September 9th things would be dry and indeed this has turned out to be the case. For more on this you can go to www.weathergossip.com/autumn.html

Finally a new addition to http://www.weathergossip.com/ is the new snow forecast for all of you snow lovers out there. It is a new idea where the next day that it is likely to snow in Ireland is put on the site and changed when its wrong - no! I was not meant to write that no but the next day of expected Wintry type precipation is put on the site and the snow lovers amongst you can then get excited and buy the carrots to stick in the noses of your snowmen. But Sligo people and Irish people in general, do not get over excited. Ireland only ever gets 2 - 4 days of good snow a day on average in the last decade. The snow link is only a guide to a day where there is hope that snow will fall and before I forget that ever important link it is www.weathergossip.com/snow.html

Coldest Nights (Sligo) Sept 2009 Onwards....

October 4th......................................................8.6c

October 3rd 2009............................................8.9c

September 12th 2009.....................................9.5c

September 11th 2009....................................9.8c

September 10th 2009....................................10.1c