RAINFALL - May 2023 To March 2024 - how wet ?

Banzai600

i wasnt sure to start a new thread or not.....but i couldnt find the info.

this current weather, miserable and drab, dull, its been for months now, since before last summer ? Been a constant topic with ppl in work...

how wet has it been, anyone know the stats, amount of wet days / rainfall in a 10 month or so period ?

i know we had record falls throughout mid / late last year, but it just seems never ending. the fact it started well before winter doesnt help. Storms etc come/go in winter but the rain is never ending. its like middle earth from lord of the rings.

forecasts are constantly wrong, dry periods are forecast and you get out of bed, an its sh1tty and wet out with rain ?

techman1

It's definitely been a very wet year, alot wetter than recent years, however 2008, 2009 and 2012 were notoriously wet years, I'd say maybe wetter than the last year, 2008 was a horrendous bad summer

stylie

I fish a lot, water levels have been high all year up and down the country. Would like to see the stats aswell but also wind direction. It feels like we get more East and North in recent years. It has affected fly populations, notable Mayfly hatching in parts of the lake they never hatched in before. Blown into areas they would not normally be in.

Chris_5339762

It would be very interesting to see a breakdown of weekdays, weekends and bank holidays. Anecdotally a lot of weekdays have had one or two acceptable days, but weekends since last June have pretty much been universally awful. Its soul destroying for workers.

pauldry

Last Summer nearly all weekends were washout the weekdays were actually OK. There was a period of 6 or 7 weeks where we would get 5 to 10mm in the 5 day working week then 30 to 50mm on the weekend. So seemed a much worse Summer than it may otherwise have been.

My own rain gauge was bought last May. It currently has 1509mm on it since then. That's over a years rain for Sligo in 10 months. I suspect some other areas are worse.

Weatherwise if someone asked me I'd say we had a very good 2 week spell early June and a couple of good days in September. A few pleasant days here and there besides. Extremely mild nights bar a quick frosty spell in January. Nights 2 to 3c above normal and days 0.5c to 1c above normal bar June and September which had days of 2 to 3c above LTA.

The rain usually dies out eventually. I'd expect a prolonged dry spell in the next few months.....surely.

Gonzo

The past 18 month period has seen the wettest conditions in England since records began in 1871. Not sure how those stats line up with Ireland but they can't be far off. Certainly here in Meath I have never seen or remember so much consistent and heavy rainfall over the past 18 months and you don't need to look at weather charts to realize this. I have never seen the fields, ditches, gardens in such a bad state since I've been born, fields here are still saturated, the ditches are still waterlogged. Meath county council spent all of last week trying to improve the drainage between the fields and the local road as our road has had constant flooding and waterlogging since Christmas, hopefully that work will pay off.

A friend of mine recently flew into Dublin airport and he said the appraoch to Dublin airport is full of waterlogged fields, he has flown into Dublin many times over the past 30 years and has never seen the landscape look this waterlogged so rainfall, here in the east at least, has been excessive compared to normal over the past year and a half.

sryanbruen

And even more impressively so than the England record outlined above by Gonzo... the even further back England & Wales precipitation series since 1766 has had its wettest 18-month period on record from September 2022 to February 2024.

Sep 2022-Feb 2024: 1907.8mm

Aug 2019-Jan 2021: 1862.3mm

Aug 1999-Jan 2001: 1854.5mm

Sep 2000-Feb 2002: 1816.9mm

Aug 1876-Jan 1878: 1814.2mm

Unfortunately our Met don't make long-term series like this as easy to view in the public domain and require a bit of manual calculation - I've heard in the background they are working on improving the historical database which I hope is true as it's in need of huge work.

Rikand

Ever since that month of sunny weather in June last year broke with the thunderstorms, it has been near constant rain since then

Robwindstorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121889940#Comment_121889940

I absolutely agree with you regards our own county of meath. I've never seen land so wet or flooded. The rain coming from west to east seems to pep up in intensity before exiting to the Irish Sea, and then when we get the easterly it drives prolonged rain over us. We only got two days of harsh dry easterlies last week before the rain joined in. A good April used to signal a good summer from my recollection so hopefully something good is on it's way, because this is just misery.

Billcarson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121891770#Comment_121891770

Well April 2007 was the warmest April on record at that point, very summer like month with plenty of sun and warmth. Was followed by the washout summer of 07. April 2011 was then the new warmest April on record then followed by a pretty poor summer.

Banzai600

Well, i am not imagining it judging by posts above.

its literally has been a washout for months on end.

i travel by motorbike daily to work, and i constantly seem to be in raingear, the raingear works, but its just abysmal every day to be looking at grey dark skies and driving in sh1tty conditions, morning til night.

zell12

Eight wettest months since records began

Abbeyknockmoy weather recorder, Brendan Geraghty, collected 5.85 inches (nearly 150mms.) of rainfall in his gauge in February with heavy falls on the 5th (0.75 inches), 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th and 28th (0.53 inches).

https://connachttribune.ie/eight-months-of-rainfall-takes-its-toll-on-farming/

Gonzo

It's basically been raining here almost non stop since Saturday with barely a few minutes break from it, alot of the time it's drizzle and misty rain during the day but some incredibly heavy downpours at night. I've had to wear rain gear every day since Saturday and usually I'd only wear this rain gear a few times per year as walks are usually possible between the rain and showers but not over the past week, it's relentless at this stage and no end in sight for rain on the models.

compsys

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121891770#Comment_121891770

The east has still been 'dryer' than the west. There's been no change to that.

Around 80% of the country's rain comes from the west/south west and it almost always decreases in intensity as it crosses the country.

So however wet you think it's been in the east it's been even worse in most places further west.

compsys

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121889940#Comment_121889940

Dunsany (your nearest station) has actually been the least wet station in the country since the start of the year.

secman

And yet......5 fine days in Summer = hose ban.

We should be able to export water if we harvested what we get, such a waste of a natural resource.

Passed a field today on the outskirts of tralee under water. Seagulls are loving it 😠

Robwindstorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121892616#Comment_121892616

I'm not denying the West is wetter than the east. I'm just saying what my own county is like. It's just my opinion, but the last few months, in the north east region, the rain has appeared to intensify as it crosses the country. County louth and Down would verify this and even the last 12hrs on the rainfall radar. It's just my observation when tracking the radar in recent months compared to what used to happen.

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121892630#Comment_121892630

The real issue has been the months and months of excessive rainfall totals in 2023 particularly the autumn and second half of December. January to present day isn't as overly excessively wet as previous months but the land just can't take much more and it doesn't take much rain for flooding to happen and fields to be waterlogged. It absolutely poured last night all night so Dunsany's rainfall total should tick up a fair bit in tomorrows reading.

adocholiday

A quick look at the data on Met Eireann's site shows that Valentia (the wettest synoptic station we have) had 1944mm of rain in 2023. 1678mm in 2022 and 1548mm in 2021. It shows a long term average (no idea what the scope of that is) of 1557mm. So for that station 2023 was 25% wetter than the long term average; but that's only part of the story because that 25% was back loaded to the second half of the year. Basically June to December with the exception of November were all well above the long term average rainfall figures, and October and December were incredibly wet at nearly 50% above average.

Neddyusa

20 odd posts and nobody can answer the OP.

Its a poor look for our national weather service that they cannot make data like this readily available.

mcburns07

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121893618#Comment_121893618

Also rainfall totals don't give a complete picture at all, days with rain would probably be equally as useful in determining how unpleasant the past while has been. A day of drizzle is a rotten day even though it might end with the same rainfall as a sunny day with one or two showers.

Chris_5339762

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121888129#Comment_121888129

Haha I counted 8 terrible weekends in a row.

Theme continues this week.

Friday looks like a lovely day actually - it'll be sunny in Cork.

Saturday bollocks

Sunday likely drizzly

Monday acceptable

.Donegal.

And for all the rain there hasn’t been any widespread severe flooding like 2009/2015? If I remembered the years correctly. Locally there was severe flooding in parts of Cork and Donegal but nothing large scale.

Reckless Abandonment

The amount of days it rained all day (from dawn to dusk) that really surprised me . I just don't remember it been this frequent

mcburns07

Another filthy morning in Cork, class

sryanbruen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121894010#Comment_121894010

A historical context of Valentia which as you say is our wettest synoptic station.

I'm going to start at March 2023 for 12-month periods as that's when the current period really started, not May as per the thread title, without a significant break and March 2023 was extremely wet.

I am using the Met.ie data which uses 00-00 and only goes back to October 1939 when we know Valentia has records going back to 1891.

Wettest calendar year (Jan-Dec): 2009 2174.9mm

Wettest 12-month period: Jan-Dec 2009 2174.9mm

13-month period: Jan 2009-Jan 2010 2336.4mm

14-month period: Sep 2022-Oct 2023: 2503.6mm

15-month period: Oct 2022-Dec 2023: 2725.1mm

16-month period: Sep 2022-Dec 2023: 2900.9mm

17-month period: Oct 2022-Feb 2024: 3035.2mm

18-month period: Sep 2022-Feb 2024: 3211.0mm

What a shocking turn of events, September 2022 to February 2024 is also the wettest 18-month period on record for Valentia - at least since the available records on the Met site started in 1939. Bet nobody was expecting that. Sarcasm aside, this is not surprising one bit.

You know what also happened in September 2022? A record warm North Atlantic sea surface temperature. Then we also had a North Atlantic marine heatwave through the summer of 2023 with unprecedented warm conditions continuing to the day (all relatively speaking!). All linked to the current historic wet period in my opinion. With warm air (or in this case, warmer sea temperatures) being able to hold more moisture and the prevailing wind being westerly off such a warm ocean relatively speaking, it makes sense. I even mentioned this as a warning sign going into the autumn and winter of 2023-24 and it has verified. I've seen El Niño being mentioned as the reason for the very wet latter but the previous year autumn 2022 which was extremely wet (in fact the wettest on record for Valentia) was during La Niña. Also, North Atlantic sea temperatures are normally cooler during El Niños for similar reasons why North Atlantic hurricane seasons are usually less active with increased wind shear.

adocholiday

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121896006#Comment_121896006

Just to follow on from Sryan's excellent post here, the North Atlantic marine heatwave continues to build on last year's increase. 2024 is trending about 0.4°C warmer than last year at the same time, and about 1°C warmer than the 1982-2011 mean (this is according to estimates from NOAA OISST v2.1).

The NOAA last week also published their predictions for the end of El Niño: A transition from El Niño to ENSO-neutral is likely by April-June 2024 (83% chance), with the odds of La Niña developing by June-August 2024 (62% chance). For us, we have had periods in the past where La Niña has driven blocking in the Atlantic allowing highs to move northwards but that's about the extent of my knowledge on it, but if that doesn't take hold until late summer I wonder are we going to remain in a wetter than average period for another few months to come?

zell12

Was covered on Countrywide earlier

pauldry

Is this now going to be the wettest March on record after 2023 was the wettest March on record??!!

mitresize5

I feel sorry for the kids more so

Rained in all Christmas, now looking like the same deal for Easter.

I coach underage football and rugby and the amount of matches called off is unbelievable. 4 games into a 20 game football season coming into April. The rugby is a bit better but the kids are frozen solid after 70 minutes playing up to the ankles in cold mud

It will come to a stage where every sports club in the country is going to have to have an artificial surface to keep matches going, which is bad for the players, bad for the environment and very expensive.

I remember as a kid hearing all this talk about Global Warming but the timelines were always way off in the distance. Fair to say we are living in the midst of it all now.

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942445#Comment_121942445

I have 400 bare root beech hedging plants that I need to get in the ground ASAP but parts of the areas where I want to plant are under water and will remain so for the next while, areas that don't normally become submerged at any time. The window for planting bare root is rapidly drawing to a close. If I manage to get half the plants in the ground in the next couple of weeks, I will be doing well.

sryanbruen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121941938#Comment_121941938

Unlikely. The national average (keep in mind, I use different stations to what the Met uses when they give their public statements with regards to national records) is nearly 40mm below last March at the moment. Even March 2019 was wetter.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121893079#Comment_121893079

In Dublin last week it was mostly nice and dry. At least 4 or 5 dry sunny/cloudy days.

I am not seeing this constant rain at all.

It did rain today, but now dry for the evening and mostly sunny/cloudy tomorrow.

Robwindstorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942636#Comment_121942636

Your lucky. Even st Patrick's day didn't dry up until 3pm with me. Today was wet cold and miserable for most of the day.

pauldry

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942588#Comment_121942588

Unlikely probably but some stations are already wetter than last year. Shannon for example.

Mywifetoldme

If you go on Met.ie, click on climate, available data, historical data,the map will take you to over 400 local weather stations.

Zoom in on the map and choose the weather station nearest you.

The nearest one to me is Bawnashkehy which is near Castleisland Co Kerry.

Click on precipitation amounts and it will tell you how much rain every day had.

For the last 6 months of 2023 there were 19 dry days!

The data for 2024 has not been updated yet.

sryanbruen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121944127#Comment_121944127

I don't rule out a new national record but individual records can always happen.

Shannon's wettest March on record is 2019 with 177.2mm.

Chris_5339762

My weather station in Cork is bang on 100mm for March 2024 so far, and any bit of wind and it doesn't register at all.

giveitholly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121945142#Comment_121945142

I am gone over 150mm here in tipp on top of another 150 in February!

.Donegal.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121944340#Comment_121944340

I never checked that before. Over 1500mm of rain last year.

Mywifetoldme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121945417#Comment_121945417

Yes,its sort of hiding away, I go looking for it ever now and then, and forget how to find it.

Now I have it written down here, I might remember where it is.

pureza

299 for the year so far in Arklow which is about average but not dramatic

140mm last month,115 so far this month

It's actually less rain for me so far this year compared to 2023 at this time

It's still horrendously wet though after the September to December deluges

sryanbruen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121944340#Comment_121944340

Just keep in mind, there will be discrepancy between the synoptic stations (the 25 ones you see on pages like current observations/yesterday's weather/monthly data etc) and the climate stations on that. Much of the synoptic station data is midnight to midnight whilst climate stations are 09-09. This may not seem like much at first sight but it's worthy to note when comparing.

For instance, say we had Valentia (a synoptic station) with a daily rainfall of 50mm and this is measured from midnight to midnight. Over 25mm of this falls before 9 am. Doesn't make a difference to Valentia as it measures from 00-00 as already mentioned. However, if we have a climate station at nearby Waterville that records similar amount for the sake of this. That means its daily fall will be half of Valentia with 25mm because it started recording for that day at 0900 despite both stations having the exact same amount of rainfall during the calendar day.

At its most simplest form that I can explain, be careful when comparing synoptic stations and climate stations in rainfall. Treat them as entirely different things because they are really with the times they record for. You may not compare yourself but others might do and it's important to say this.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943246#Comment_121943246

St Pats was lovely in Dublin for the most part.

Currently bright blue skys here, though there was some rain early in the morning.

Clear night ahead and weekend looks dry & on into next week.

KanyeSouthEast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121946849#Comment_121946849

Saturday: It looks set to be another rather unsettled but perhaps milder day overall. A brisk southerly flow will usher in plenty of showers during the afternoon and evening, some possibly heavy a times too. Highest temperatures of 10 to 12 degrees.

Sunday: Current models indicate that the unsettled weather will remain for Sunday with showers nationwide in the afternoon and evening together with blustery southerly winds. Perhaps slightly milder too with

almostthere12

South of Cork city and currently at 177mm for the month and 517mm for the year so far!!

zell12

"It started to rain about the 15 June 2023, and it has never stopped since" says a farmer. "The incessant rainfall and shocking ground conditions are adding hugely to costs and stress levels for farmers," says another. Met say 2023 was the third wettest year on record going back to 1940.

https://www.rte.ie/news/weather/2024/0327/1440176-farmers-weather-climate/

zell12

Met says it was wet

Dublin Airport recorded 115.4mm, which is 219% of its average rainfall for March. 2024 and 2023 are now two of the three wettest Marches on record at the station, along with 1947.

The highest daily rainfall total was 45.3mm at Dublin Airport on 1 March – its highest daily rainfall for March on record.

The number of rain days recorded ranged from 20 days at Belmullet, to 29 days at both Shannon Airport and Ballyhaise

https://www.thejournal.ie/march-rain-climate-statement-6343729-Apr2024/

sryanbruen

As I had thought, March 2024 didn't turn out as wet as 2023. It nationally averaged 131.8mm versus 144.7mm in March 2023 but make no mistake, that is still exceptionally wet. Likely the 4th wettest March in the past 45 years with probably 1982 and 2019 also being wetter on a national scale. 2019 averaged 141.4mm on this dataset of 11 stations I use, don't have a figure for 1982 but many individual stations had their wettest on record then.

It was the 2nd consecutive wetter than average month and 7 of the past 9 months have been wetter than average. November was basically near average (with a high average) and January was relatively dry but not especially so. Last May was the last month with an anomaly of at least 20mm below national average. February 2023 was the last very dry month.

July 2023-March 2024 had a national average of 1165.3mm. A typical July-March period would have 875.1mm. That's 133% of average which for national is huge.

If we go from September 2022-March 2024 as that's when the current wet era really started rather than last July, Ireland has averaged 2198.1mm over this 19 month period compared to a typical 1797.7mm and is 122% of average which again is huge. The longer a timeframe of incorporating more data, the harder it gets to get extreme anomalies so 122% is extreme in of itself. This isn't significantly greater than August 2019-February 2021 though which was also exceptionally wet at 2172.3mm.

joebloggs32

I'd love to see cumulative rainfall stats dating back to June 13th last summer.

That day I travelled from the Midlands to Limerick for a graduation. Like the first two weeks of June there was bright sunshine on my journey down. However driving back home I could see dark cumulus clouds developing in front of me. As I neared home the flashes of lightning appeared, and some of the heaviest downpours I ever witnessed. By that weekend some of the most spectacular thunder and lightning storms appeared that I have ever witnessed.

That was the end of our summer in 2023.

Exactly one month later floods arrived on the Shannon Callows, and have remained there since. I have never seen the callows submerged for so long. Four, five maybe even six months in a bad winter, but it is coming up on 9 months now. The callow lands will not be of any use this year.