Costa Belmullet was the place to be this summer
Country Living with Francis Farragher
One of the more unusual trends of our weather pattern this summer was the fact that the West of Ireland overall fared better than the East Coast in terms of sunshine and in avoiding some of the more intense downpours during the month of August.
According to the latest Met Eireann bulletins for August and the summer gone by, the sunniest place to be in Ireland over recent months was Belmullet, on the north-western tip of Mayo, a place we’d normally associate with high winds laden with water.
On the law of averages when our weather systems normally blow in from the Atlantic, the probability is that the West Coast – first in the firing line – will bear the brunt of the elements. But this summer, like 2013, brought a very welcome disruption to our ‘normal service’ with the Jet Stream tending to stay well to the north of Ireland and the UK, allowing high pressure to be the dominant influence on our summer weather.
The highs didn’t sit directly over us for long periods but they came close enough to prevent the Atlantic weather systems from hitting our shores on a regular basis. How many days during the summer can you recall being buffeted by wind and rain . . . very few has to be the answer.
Anyway, Belmullet was the place to be this summer, topping the Irish daylight league for the months of June, July and August, with just over 603 hours of sunshine, its highest total since 1968. However just to prove that weather like politics is all local, just ‘down the road’ from Belmullet, the lowest summer sunshine total was recorded at Knock Airport with only 349 hours of the bright stuff.
The sunniest day of the year was also at Belmullet on June 17 (15.8 hours) and it also took the sunshine accolade for August with 235 hours of clear skies. Part of the East Coast, in a swathe from Dublin up to North Antrim, experience quite a wet month of August in contrast to Galway, where rainfall was just around the average and a little lower in places.
One of the most intense downpours of the Summer occurred in Dublin on the Saturday of August 2, with a whopping 84mms. (well over 3 inches) falling that day. That one single downpour in Dublin was more than Abbeyknockmoy weather man, Brendan Geraghty collected in his goblet for the entire 31 days of the month – 3.13 inches or just under 80mms.
Brendan Geraghty recorded 16 wet days during the month, but many of those only brought small amounts of rainfall, equating to what we used to refer to as ‘nice, soft summer days’.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.