Sunny South East: Any facts?

Roen

Having lived here most of my life I still have to remind myself that I do actually live in what's know as the Sunny South East.

Is this title perceptual or are there any figures backing it up?
I did a quick google and couldn't really find a whole lot.

Cheers!
R.

MiNdGaM3

Roen wrote: »

Having lived here most of my life I still have to remind myself that I do actually live in what's know as the Sunny South East.

Is this title perceptual or are there any figures backing it up?
I did a quick google and couldn't really find a whole lot.

Cheers!
R.

Couresty of Met Eireann http://met.ie/climate-ireland/sunshine.asp

Ireland normally gets between 1100 and 1600 hours of sunshine each year. The sunniest months are May and June. During these months, sunshine duration averages between 5 and 6.5 hours per day over most of the country. The extreme southeast gets most sunshine, averaging over 7 hours a day in early summer. December is the dullest month, with an average daily sunshine ranging from about 1 hour in the north to almost 2 hours in the extreme southeast. Over the year as a whole, most areas get an average of between 3 1/4 and 3 3/4 hours of sunshine each day. 1887 was the sunniest summer in the 100 years from 1881 to 1980, according to measurements made at the Phoenix Park in Dublin. A more recent summer, 1980, was the dullest.

Hope this helps!

Roen

Cheers Mindgame,

It is of use in indeed!

mike65

Its definitely true, anyone who drives from west to east on a typical Irish day (as I used to a lot) can see the difference in cloud cover and rainfall esp if its showery in nature.

patneve2

As the chart previously posted shows, the South-East is the sunniest area of Ireland. However, many make the mistake of thinking that its the driest area of the country too, this is false as county Dublin receives the least rainfall.

Trotter

There was an image floating around during the snow last winter or the one before of the whole country covered in snow, bar this little green Waterford shaped oasis on the South coast. As a snow lover it bugged me somethin terrible, but thinking rationally, I often wondered was it linked to the same thing that has us up there in the sunshine charts in Summer.

Calibos

Trotter wrote: »

There was an image floating around during the snow last winter or the one before of the whole country covered in snow, bar this little green Waterford shaped oasis on the South coast. As a snow lover it bugged me somethin terrible, but thinking rationally, I often wondered was it linked to the same thing that has us up there in the sunshine charts in Summer.

Ditto for me in Bray Winter '10/'11. Gutted that we seemed to be in a snow shadow from every direction. Isle of Man Shadow when the east was getting lake effect streamers off the Irish sea. Anglesey shadow when that Low came across from the ESE. Wicklow mountain shadow when there was frontal snow coming across from the West. Dublin Mountain shadow when there was frontal snow coming from the North West.

Now granted we got enough now and then that we had 5 inches at times on the seafront but even a mile or so inland Bray got no more than a 9 or 10 inches while a few miles up the road in Carrigmines and Tallaght they had 2 or 3 feet!!


Up YoursIOM by Ca1ibos, on Flickr


Crying Snow by Ca1ibos, on Flickr

However, these are the same reasons that Bray is sunnier and dryer then County Dublin a few minutes up the road and Greystones/Wicklow/Arklow a few minutes down the road.

Its been amazing really watching raintoday.co.uk radar and seeing the masses of precipitation across the SW,W&NW and what little does come in our direction in the east mostly disapates over the Wicklow mountains before it gets to Bray.

bmaxi

Calibos wrote: »

Ditto for me in Bray Winter '10/'11. Gutted that we seemed to be in a snow shadow from every direction. Isle of Man Shadow when the east was getting lake effect streamers off the Irish sea. Anglesey shadow when that Low came across from the ESE. Wicklow mountain shadow when there was frontal snow coming across from the West. Dublin Mountain shadow when there was frontal snow coming from the North West.

Now granted we got enough now and then that we had 5 inches at times on the seafront but even a mile or so inland Bray got no more than a 9 or 10 inches while a few miles up the road in Carrigmines and Tallaght they had 2 or 3 feet!!


Up YoursIOM by Ca1ibos, on Flickr


Crying Snow by Ca1ibos, on Flickr

However, these are the same reasons that Bray is sunnier and dryer then County Dublin a few minutes up the road and Greystones/Wicklow/Arklow a few minutes down the road.

Its been amazing really watching raintoday.co.uk radar and seeing the masses of precipitation across the SW,W&NW and what little does come in our direction in the east mostly disapates over the Wicklow mountains before it gets to Bray.

Driving on a regular basis from Wexford, I've often remarked on the fact that the weather always seems drier and sunnier as you come around that long sweeping bend between Fassaroe and Leopardstown.

Pangea

My friend drove from Donegal to Cork during the mid December snow, he said once he hit Galway City the conditions noticeably improved .
I dont really care about the most sunshine to be honest, Glencolmcille has a record for the lowest monthly sunshine duration: 6.4 hours at Glencolmcille. I'm not sure where ME got their data for that, as far as I know they have no meteorological equipment in Glen.

snowstreams

Pangea wrote: »

My friend drove from Donegal to Cork during the mid December snow, he said once he hit Galway City the conditions noticeably improved .
I dont really care about the most sunshine to be honest, Glencolmcille has a record for the lowest monthly sunshine duration: 6.4 hours at Glencolmcille. I'm not sure where ME got their data for that, as far as I know they have no meteorological equipment in Glen.

Yeah, ive heard that parts of Monaghan/cavan are supposed to be the dullest places in the country. My Father is from around there, and from my visits that way I would have believed it. But according to those maps looks like inland mayo is the dullest, I wonder how accurate they are?

Pangea

Also another thing that is interesting is Daylight differences, Not important as sunlight to most people obviously.
The South may have more sunlight but the North obviously has more daylight in the summer. Probably goes unnoticed to most people

Sunset times for today from YR.NO (the difference will increase until June 23rd)
Malin Head Sunrise 04:50 Sunset 22:06

Mizen Head Sunrise 05:24 Sunset 21:52

Dublin Sunrise 04:59 Sunset 21:48

Of course this also means the North has the Shortest days and least daylight in the winter

Deep Easterly

snowstreams wrote: »

Yeah, ive heard that parts of Monaghan/cavan are supposed to be the dullest places in the country. My Father is from around there, and from my visits that way I would have believed it. But according to those maps looks like inland mayo is the dullest, I wonder how accurate they are?

According to Met Eireann, Claremorris has the lowest sunshine total of all the stations used on their '30 year averages' page.
http://www.met.ie/climate-ireland/30year-averages.asp
with a mean daily sunshine total of 3.05hrs (61-90 average)

Clones is a close 2nd though on 3.19hrs daily mean.

I can't remember off hand but I think Straide in Co. Mayo has an even lower MDST than even Claremorris which is why I think those maps used above can be deemed pretty accurate.

Living between Galway & Mayo I have often noticed that it is often far darker and cloudier looking towards Mayo than it is looking south towards Galway on an average fair weather day which is most likely down to the more convective nature of cloud formation as one moves inland in spring & summer esp.

snowstreams

Thanks for pointing that out. I have noticed that during the summer months the coastal regions of mayo tend to be the brightest. But then again sea fog and mist sometimes can cause the opposite effect.
Well whenever im on trips to mayo I always look at the met eireann visible satellite before i head off to see where the cloud is that day, and head accordingly, generally to the coast :rolleyes:

EDIT: I just noticed on the met site that Clones has more "mean no. of days with no sun" at 77 days compared with Claremorris at 69 days. So maybe thats how i heard that statistic.
Id say mountains are duller yet again, but since there are no weather stations up there it wouldnt count.
And the cloudiest place on the planet is disputed to be the summit of Ben Nevis.

irishh_bob

patneve2 wrote: »

As the chart previously posted shows, the South-East is the sunniest area of Ireland. However, many make the mistake of thinking that its the driest area of the country too, this is false as county Dublin receives the least rainfall.

kildare and louth afaik recieve smaller amounts of rain aswell , kerry , galway and donegal being the wettest

Pangea

Another thing, I seen facts from IWO saying

15. The snowiest weather station in Ireland is in Clones, County Monaghan; which receives, on average, nearly 30 days of snow and/or sleet per year

Whereas Deep Easterlys post below from some time ago shows Donegal gets the most.

Deep Easterly wrote:

Map showing average No. of days with snow over Ireland in an average year: (based on 61-90 average)



Map taken from:
"Climates of the British Isles: present, past and future" ( Elaine Barrow, Michael Hulme: 1997)



We must bow our heads in shame!

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Deep Easterly

Pangea wrote: »

Another thing, I seen facts from IWO saying

15. The snowiest weather station in Ireland is in Clones, County Monaghan; which receives, on average, nearly 30 days of snow and/or sleet per year

It does/did; Malin Head not far behind on 26 days per year with snow or sleet: http://www.met.ie/climate/malinhead.asp. But No. of days with snow or sleet should not be mistaken for No. of days with snow alone as sleet is far more common in Ireland!

Still, the data on the map above does seem to conflict with data on the met eireann 30 year averages page http://www.met.ie/climate/30year-averages.asp regarding No. of days with snow. Met eireann has No. of days listed with snow lying at 0900utc of which Clones has 10.8 days while Mullingar has 8.4. I don't have the source book that map was taken from at hand but I think it is based on either the measurement (>1cm/2cm etc) of snow or snow lying for a full day rather than snow lying at a particular time of day but can't remember off hand
Donegal naturally gets more snow in an average year though as it is a hilly county overall which is totally exposed to Polar W/NW/N/NE winds.

Pangea

Ah right, I see from that link the only station they use in their averages from Co.Donegal is the Malin head station, which is the very tip of the county exposed to the sea, that says it all. If they used their Glenties station it would probably beat Clones. Surprised to see Mullingar even mentioned!

Deep Easterly

Pangea wrote: »

Surprised to see Mullingar even mentioned!

I am not in the least surprised though that a thread opened to discuss the sunny southeast ended up on a discussion on snow days in Donegal and Clones!! :eek:;)

Pangea

Deep Easterly wrote: »

I am not in the least surprised though that a thread opened to discuss the sunny southeast ended up on a discussion on snow days in Donegal and Clones!! :eek:;)

haha

Roen

Hi guys,

Cheers for all the responses. I got a good tour of the country in there for free too