[dohouch]

You have 5 sentences of no more than 10 words of no more than 2 syllables to explain this to a weather dummy.

[DOCARCH]

Not sure how you figure rain 'moves in from the south'???

Looking at radar, rain is pretty much moving from north to south (or thereabouts).

[kwik]

The system was to the south and spiralled around anticlockwise and came in from the north east maybe!!

[blackius]

Originally Posted by DOCARCH

Not sure how you figure rain 'moves in from the south'???

Looking at radar, rain is pretty much moving from north to south (or thereabouts).

Well essentially the rain area is moving north but the bands of rain in it are moving soutwestward (anticlockwise with the surface winds around the low).
The low itself is moving north taking the banding with it...though thats still sw moving banding in Ireland(its moving NW at the other side of the low over towards England) .
The sw movement carries on but the area affected is ever more northward as the low moves north.

[dohouch]

Thanks to all who replied

So now I would say. An anti-clockwise SWIRL of RAIN is moving in a northerly direction.
Is that O.K.


HOW WIDE are these SWIRLS? 1,000 miles, 5,000 miles


rgds and thanks

[Harps]

Basically a low pressure system moved up from the south, air flows anti-clockwise around low pressure so the air to the north of it flows from east to west.

Here's the satellite pic, the low (red) moved up into the Irish sea and stalled but because we're still to its north/east, the wind (blue) and rain still blows in from the east or north east even though it arrived from the south. Not sure if that makes sense, it does in my head anyway

[dohouch]

Originally Posted by Harps

Basically a low pressure system moved up from the south, air flows anti-clockwise around low pressure so the air to the north of it flows from east to west.

Here's the satellite pic, the low (red) moved up into the Irish sea and stalled but because we're still to its north/east, the wind (blue) and rain still blows in from the east or north east even though it arrived from the south. Not sure if that makes sense, it does in my head anyway

@Harps: Thanks for the painting, been wondering about this for aons.

We had very interesting weather here on the Dingle Peninsula, this afternoon . Very windy 6>7, and spitting rain every 20 or 30 minutes, but it hasn't rained since about 11 AM. By Spitting I mean widely spaced wind driven drops that carry no real volume. The Spitting lasts about 5 minutes. Put the washing out and it was dry in about 2 hours.

[M.T. Cranium]

You were in a rare situation for any given place, being on the edge of a large rainfall system (as explained by previous posters) where precip rates are lowest, but because the system was elongated and slow-moving, you stayed in the same position relative to all that for hours. The outer edges of such a system are usually light intermittent showers. Once upon a time I happened to be in the location where the outer bands of Hurricane David (Sept 1979) dropped rain and was probably just about at the point where one raindrop fell. It may have been more like ten raindrops, but it was quite interesting to be at that "singularity" -- some place always is with each storm event.