Why the weather is as it is at the moment

darkman2

Right, to put an end to the endless questions:


Firstly there is nothing unusual about the weather at the moment. This is the default weather for Ireland.

The reason is simple - the jet stream (which dictates the path of low pressure) is right over our heads at the moment streaming in off the Atlantic. This is perfectly normal for Ireland. It ensures the weather is often cool and wet. The jet stream is driven over us because of a pressure rise in the Artic (this is driven by warm Stratospheric temperatures) and because this pattern is our normal pattern it is difficult to break. July will be a write off for summer weather. August may see some hope of warmer dryer weather but its unlikely that any heatwaves are going to occur. We often, in these situations, end up with heavy showers or long periods of rain. This is not unusual. The warm sea temperatures ensure that any unsettled weather will bring some flooding at this time of year due to heavy rain. Often there will be thunderstorms due to cold maritime air and continental air interacting. These produce very heavy downpours. This summer will not be good because stratospheric temperatures will remain high for the forseeable future. The upshot of this is that Winter could well be very cold but that is speculation. To sum up - no record breaking temperatures this year and the unsettled weather will continue.

Well thats crap news.:D

Daveyn

"Crap news " thats an understatement, i've decided to spend all my money on doing up the house instead of going on holiday, so i was expecting great weather according to all the experts.Looks like no sun tan for me this year.

ninebeanrows

Yurp, you may as well write off the next 10 days, Tuesday may be a decent day however... you've been warned!

Although some faint signs of something more settled and warm from 10 days +

But that is nothing more than an outside chance :rolleyes:

Summer 07 is looking baaaaaaad

Saruman

I woke up this morning to clear blue skies in westmeath... i thought "the oxygen goers will be happy today" Then i went back to bed for a couple of hours and woke up to clouds which look like they are going to piss rain any moment.... damn it.. i wanted to go for a cycle for the first time in over a year.

arctictree

Just to add to this - Our average June temp was only 0.3c below normal - so very close to average. Much more rain though...

A

rc28

arctictree wrote:

Just to add to this - Our average June temp was only 0.3c below normal - so very close to average. Much more rain though...

A

I Presume you mean your particular location because meteireann say that generally June was one degree above average:
http://www.met.ie/climate/monthly-summary.asp

Mobhi1

And of the Met Eireann stations on here, http://www.met.ie/climate/monthly-data.asp, all were above average in June apart from Dublin Airport which was slightly below for the first time since March 2006.

rc28

Mobhi1 wrote:

And of the Met Eireann stations on here, http://www.met.ie/climate/monthly-data.asp, all were above average in June apart from Dublin Airport which was slightly below for the first time since March 2006.

This is off topic but I see you live in glasnevin, do you know if the meteireann hq in glasnevin still have a shop where you can get their publications?

Mobhi1

rc28 wrote:

This is off topic but I see you live in glasnevin, do you know if the meteireann hq in glasnevin still have a shop where you can get their publications?

Sorry, don't know; I never realised they had a shop. Must have a closer look next time I'm walking past.

arctictree

rc28 wrote:

I Presume you mean your particular location because meteireann say that generally June was one degree above average:
http://www.met.ie/climate/monthly-summary.asp

Yes - was just looking at the average for Dublin airport....

John32c

It was announced by the met service that we have had 34 days running of rain in some part of Ireland. That is more than highly unusual and is a met record. Yes we are used to rain but neither Winter or Autumn produces the amount and prolonged spell of rain that we are currently experiencing...

patrickolee

Saruman wrote:

I woke up this morning to clear blue skies in westmeath... i thought "the oxygen goers will be happy today" Then i went back to bed for a couple of hours and woke up to clouds which look like they are going to piss rain any moment.... damn it.. i wanted to go for a cycle for the first time in over a year.

God lads, come on... a little drizzle wouldn't hurt ya. We're waterproof you know!

sunset

Two quick replies to this discussion
1. Length of rain period - I think I recall that Co. Mayo alone has had longer continuous rain periods in the past. Sunday Times ran a feature some years ago about the rain record and one particular met observer in Co. Mayo with regard to this. And that was for a small area. For an area as large as Ireland it would be much easier to have rain somewhere on many successive days than for a single county.
2. Met Eireann explained about the temperatures that the reason why many temps were slightly above the average was that ther minimum temps did not dip as much due to night time cloud. But during the day they didn't rise very far.

irish_bob

darkman2 wrote:

Right, to put an end to the endless questions:


Firstly there is nothing unusual about the weather at the moment. This is the default weather for Ireland.

The reason is simple - the jet stream (which dictates the path of low pressure) is right over our heads at the moment streaming in off the Atlantic. This is perfectly normal for Ireland. It ensures the weather is often cool and wet. The jet stream is driven over us because of a pressure rise in the Artic (this is driven by warm Stratospheric temperatures) and because this pattern is our normal pattern it is difficult to break. July will be a write off for summer weather. August may see some hope of warmer dryer weather but its unlikely that any heatwaves are going to occur. We often, in these situations, end up with heavy showers or long periods of rain. This is not unusual. The warm sea temperatures ensure that any unsettled weather will bring some flooding at this time of year due to heavy rain. Often there will be thunderstorms due to cold maritime air and continental air interacting. These produce very heavy downpours. This summer will not be good because stratospheric temperatures will remain high for the forseeable future. The upshot of this is that Winter could well be very cold but that is speculation. To sum up - no record breaking temperatures this year and the unsettled weather will continue.

biggest load of crap ive read in a long time , claiming that thier is nothing unusual about the weather
did you know that its rained im most parts of ireland every day since the 6th of june
farmers are always a good source of info for the weather as they live and die by it , ive spoken to many farmers , they say its by far the worst summer they ever seen and that includes 2002 , 1985 and 1974
land is wetter now than it was last january , crops cant be sprayed for disease , silage cant be harvested and cattle are having to be put back inside
so dont come out with complete hogwash like thier is nothing abnormal about the weather , this summer has been for many a wake up call that climate change is a reality , i hope now that we all do what we can before its too late
one thing is certain , we will see more summers like this in yrs to come