Ireland has just experienced the wettest July ever recorded, according to provisional data from Met Éireann, breaking a record set in 2009.
The past month massively exceeded the long-term average rainfall for July, with the country receiving 215 per cent of expected rainfall.
The country received an average of 178.9mm of rain during the month of July. The previous record for the wettest July on record was in 2009, with the country receiving an average of 202 per cent of the expected rainfall based on data beginning in 1981.
Speaking to The Irish Times ahead of the release of the official data, Met Éireann climatologist Paul Moore said 17 of 25 of Met Éireann’s primary weather stations had recorded more than 200 per cent of expected rainfall in July, with at least 11 stations recording record high rainfall for July. This poor weather is due to “a period of low-pressure systems drifting across the country”, Mr Moore said, and “these systems brought convective rain through the month”.
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This record level of rainfall comes just after the hottest June on record, breaking an 83-year-old record. It was the first time that June had an average temperature higher than 16 degrees. The previous record was set in 1940 and was broken by more than half a degree.
The wettest days were July 14th and July 15th, where there was “widespread rainfall” across the country, the climatologist said, and on July 22nd when flooding occurred in Donegal; the weather station in Dunsany, Co Meath, that day recorded 41.6mm of rainfall.
Three of the last 12 months were among the wettest on record, the national forecaster said, these being October 2022, March 2023 and July 2023. March was the wettest on record with an average of 173.3mm of rainfall across the country, surpassing the previous record set in 2019.
Mr Moore said the weather would “stay unsettled for the next week with no let-up in rainfall”. However, there was potential for nicer weather to come later in the month.