Data shows June one of wettest on record

PRELIMINARY WEATHER data for the month of June showed that it was one of the wettest on record for many places. Some weather stations recorded three times the average amount of rainfall for the month most of which fell in the deluges in the first and last weeks of June.

Knock airport had 230.1mm (9in) of rain in June. The average is 72.1mm. Roches Point in Co Cork, the county which has experienced the worst of recent flood episodes, recorded 186mm – nearly four times the average of 53.6mm.

Casement Aerodrome outside Dublin recorded 178.5mm (more than 8in) of rain in the month. The average for the month is 52.6mm.

Ballyhaise in Co Cavan recorded 185.1mm, three times the average of 67mm a month.

Cork airport experienced 46mm (nearly 2in) of rain in the space of two hours last week causing flash flooding throughout the city. Most of the rain has fallen as a result of thunderstorms which have become more frequent in recent years.

Unfortunately, the forecast for this week is for the wet weather to continue with sporadic showers.

“We’re still in for an unsettled week ahead. Everybody is going to get rain. Nobody is going to escape,” said Met Éireann forecaster Gobnait McSweeney.

“We’re going to have some scattered showers. A few of them could be heavy with a risk of thunder.”

Temperatures today will be around normal at between 17 and 20 degrees because of southerly breezes.

A showery band of rain is expected across the country tonight bringing heavy rainfall to the Munster area which has already borne the brunt of the recent flash flooding.

Wednesday will also be a showery day and Thursday will be little better. Friday looks like being the best day of the week.

The long-term rainfall averages for July show the month getting dramatically wetter in recent decades.

The average increase in rainfall in July across the country is 15 per cent, according to Met Éireann’s latest 30-year forecast for the years between 1981 and 2010 in comparison with the previous averages between 1961 and 1990.

On average, rainfall in the west of Ireland is up by 8 per cent and Valentia Observatory in Co Kerry is recording an average of a month’s extra rainfall every year.

However, Met Éireann has cautioned against seeing the increase in extreme rainfall as necessarily indicative of climate change.

The increases in July rainfall may be the result of the wet summers of 2007, 2008 and 2009 and the flood conditions of 2009 which were a once-in-500 years event for many parts of the west of Ireland.

Met Éireann senior climatologist Séamus Walsh said at the launch of the 30-year averages report: “There is no evidence that there is a change in the extreme values of rainfall.”