Hottest and coldest counties in Ireland

bobbysands81

Is there anywhere I can find stats on hottest and coldest counties?

I know folk say that the “Sunny South East” and Wexford has the most sunshine, but it deffo ain’t the hottest county.

Are there stats anywhere on hottest and coldest counties?

pauldry

Donegal is cold and cloudy

Inland Southeast warmest like Carlow or Kilkenny but hottest temperatures in last heatwave were in the midlands

fryup

i'd say donegal coldest, waterford warmest

Neddyusa

If you're basing it on current met stations probably Mount Dillon (Roscommon) has the biggest range from average winter lows to average summer highs.

I'd say Gurteen and Oak Park are two of the other top three in terms of min-max temp range.

Be interesting to see the stats though - as I'm just guessing!

Neddyusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117732352#Comment_117732352

Its not likely to be a coastal county anyway

Raytown Rocks

Ovens Co. Cork 😀

Neddyusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117732569#Comment_117732569

And Birr, Co. Offaly is obviously the coldest 😜

Supercell

Best climate in Ireland I'd go for Wicklow, fairly sunny, the mountains usually get a bit of snow in winter and can do fairly well inland during any warm spell. Rathdrum always struck me as a decent spot weatherwise there.

Gonzo

In terms of cold and snow I would say inland Donegal.

In terms of sunshine I would say wicklow/east Wexford.

In terms of thunderstorms western and far southern areas.

In terms of driest I would say Dublin and coastal fringes of southern half of Leinster.

In terms of warmth I would say Carlow/Kilkenny for general summer warmth but during heatwaves the midlands/Roscommon.

Oneiric 3

Would say Cavan/Leitem/Monaghan/Longford and that general area are the coldest and also snowiest.

South midland/mid-western areas warmest in summer.

Donegal windiest. east midlands/Dublin driest. Kerry, W Clare & W Mayo wettest. Mayo/Connemara/mid-west most thundery & Wicklow/Wexford/Waterford most sunniest. N Kerry up to Donegal the dullest.

davehey79

Do you have any charts etc. on this. Not doubting it only that i live in Longford and yeah it can be cold but defo not snowiest !

breezy1985

Limerick junction in Tipperary is the coldest windiest place in Ireland

Tyrone212

Muff in Donegal the wettest.

passatman86

Kerry must be the wettest, whenever im in kerry its raining.

DOCARCH

Mod Note: Some posts removed. You know who you are!

Peregrinus

Valentia Island has the highest average year-round temperature of any weather observation station in Ireland: 10.9º, but Rosslare is the sunniest station - average year-round is 4.38 hrs of sunshine/day. The driest station is either Ringsend (lowest precipitation; 683 mm precipitation per year) or Dublin Airport (fewest wet days; 128/year).

Mullingar has the lowest average year-round temperature: 9.3º. Birr is the cloudiest; average 3.2 hrs sunshine/day. The wettest is either Leenane (2,875 mm precipitation per year) or Belmullet (183 wet days per year).

From which we can conclude: if you want warmth and sunshine, stick to the coast and stay south. To avoid rain, stay east.

Oneiric 3

I'm not convinced that living on the coast is the place to be for warmth. Yes, temperatures may be higher along the coast lines in winter that they would be inland for example, it because of the increased wind, it will feel just as cold, if not colder than it would inland where temps may be several degrees cooler. I've lived by the sea and I have lived inland and I find this to be true.

sryanbruen

Resurrecting this month old thread... I wanted to give a response at the time but the data I was compiling was nowhere near done. Fortunately, (the only good thing about new Boards for me) Boards saved my response as a draft so I can continue where I left off.

I have been working on an Irish temperature records by county database for a good while now and this is a tabulated form of the maximum temperature records using the data available at hand. Most of the old temperature records were compiled using old UK Met monthly weather reports rather than datasets due to limited access in data in certain cases - for example, no access to Kilkenny Castle or Foynes data. So as a result, may have missed a temperature record or two here and there. If a row has only a year, the date is unknown. It will have been mentioned or referenced in a past article but an exact date was not given and a date cannot be found due to limited access to data.

I know this doesn't really answer the question of hottest counties as say an average temperature would but hopefully it's of interest nevertheless as I have worked so hard on it with hours and hours of dedication. It's probably the most amount of time I've put into a weather project since my Irish heatwaves series. A tabular form of the minimum temperature one will be up sometime too. I plan to incorporate the Northern Ireland counties into the database but for now, sticking with the counties in the Republic.

Edit: I have no idea why the quality of the table image is poor, it's fine elsewhere outside Boards.

Have a good weekend anyway folks!

Goldfinch8

Really appreciate the effort that you have put into this Sryan. Makes for a most interesting read and analysis. It will be great to have this county by county database to hand for future study and to make further comparisons. Thanks.

Gaoth Laidir

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117903080#Comment_117903080

Brilliant work.

Danno

Fantastic work! interesting that Westmeath, a very inland county is the only county not to burst 30c... yet.

M.T. Cranium

All I could add to this discussion is that month after month when I calculate the "IMT" for our contests, my habit is to look at the five stations in the order of Claremorris, Mullingar, Casement, Oak Park and Shannon and it's usually the case that the mean temperature rises steadily from the start to the end of that circuit, although Mullingar-Casement more likely to be even. Shannon is quite often a full degree warmer than Oak Park.

Rikand

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117905175#Comment_117905175

Weather station near athlone needed. Would easily be over the 30° :)

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117918080#Comment_117918080

I'm guessing that Westmeath is such a flat county that there are no local fohn effects in play to help rise temperatures into the 30s on the warmer summer days.

sryanbruen

As promised, here is now a big table containing the minimum temperature records for every Irish county using the data available at hand. As with the maximum temperature records one previously posted, there may have been some values I have missed for counties due to data not being available at hand such as Mostrim (Longford) and Clongowes Wood College (Kildare) and any values from such stations I do have were referenced or mentioned in an article or issue somewhere. If a row has only a year, the exact date is unknown.

This one was trickier to compile also due to the quantity of false values or reading that do not go along with the pattern of that given day or seem a complete outlier when compared with other stations' observations on the same day. I tried the best I could to exclude these readings.

Again I have no idea why the quality of the table image is poor when I embed it/upload into Boards.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday all :)

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733636#Comment_117733636

Lots of rain up those mountains.

Danno

@sryanbruen I wonder is it possible to save it as a PDF and upload... Excel and Word should allow you Save File As... and change to PDF in the Filetype menu!

Test PDF.pdf

sryanbruen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118068562#Comment_118068562

Tables are far too big, looks a mess when one attempts to save them as PDFs. An online page of an embedded table is the best solution as far as I can see.

cute geoge

I live in north kerry bleak area near the sea and some winters get few enouh frosts but by god the breeeze chill is fuken skinning from november to april .I have had neighbours in the yard who could not belive it was so cold compared to their own places up the road