Irish Weather Statistics

The Irish Times, 30 January 1917







The Irish Times, 31 January 1917

SleetAndSnow wrote: »

Brilliant, informative post as per usual Sryan! Love it!

I'll be back later with February to May 1917 .

February 1917 was the coldest month of the Winter but it was not snowy which is unusual to see. The CET was 0.9c making it the coldest since 1895 and the fifth coldest February of the 20th century (behind 1947, 1986, 1963 and 1956). Why and how February was so cold was due to the persistence of severe frosts brought in by a stubborn area of high pressure over top of the snow cover from the end of January.

The first week of February 1917 was dominated by a northeasterly to northerly flow bringing yet more cold conditions. As a deep area of low pressure approached from out of North America, the blocking collapsed over us bringing some very severe frosts of unusual severity.



The high stayed over top of us for a good week or two and as the air contained in this high was very cold, it stayed cold. It was an unusually persistent ridge of high pressure. Remember that there would have snow cover still there from the end of January. Some minimum temperatures in the UK & Ireland during the period:

-20.0c at Benson on the 6th
-19.4c at Wellington on the 6th
-16.7c at Ross-on-Wye on the 6th
-16.7c at Gwernyfed Pk on the 6th
-16.1c at Braemar on the 6th
-16.8c at West Linton on the 6th
-15.6c at Woburn on the 7th
-15.6c at Buxton on the 7th
-15.0c at Wisley on the 7th
-13.9c at Canterbury on the 3rd
-13.9c at Aldershot on the 7th

-15.0c at Clongowes Wood College on the 6th
-13.9c at Markree Castle on the 6th
-13.3c at Phoenix Park on the 6th
-12.8c at Kilkenny on the 6th
-11.1c at Glasnevin on the 6th





The winds veered westerly to southwesterly by the 18th February bringing in milder conditions and this melted the snow that was left from January. There was outbreaks of heavy rain in Ireland, southwestern England and Wales including 33mm at Mount Callan, Co. Clare, 31mm at Valentia Observatory, Co. Kerry and 24mm at Birr Castle, Co. Offaly.



Some rain at times for the rest of February 1917 especially in the north of the UK but generally on the dry side again as was the theme of February with the exception of those severe frosts. This time though it was mild as the high tended to centre over Europe for the first time since the start of January.



March 1917 was another very cold month (and wasn't going to be the last with such a significant deviation below average). The CET for the month was 3.2c and only March 1962 was colder in the 20th century. March 2013 was colder too by comparison with a CET of 2.8c. March 1916 had been a significantly cold month too just a year before with a CET of 3.3c so it was amazing how these back to back very cold Marches happened.

In contrast to February, March was an unsettled month but this resulted in frequent occurrences of snow unlike February too.

A strong high over Russia retrogressed westwards into Scandinavia in early March 1917 whilst a deep low in the Atlantic did a northwest to southeast trajectory down the west of Ireland with the winds attempting to veer easterly. This low resulted in a lot of rain for places for several days with daily rainfalls of more than 25mm over a large portion of Ireland on the 4th.

The easterly won the battle by the end of the first week with heavy outbreaks of snow showers developing. However, this was a very temporary easterly as the winds veered to a southwesterly the very next day with a milder period of weather setting back in up to the 14th then an anticyclone built over the country resulting in frosts and then frequent cold zonality took place through the rest of March with the Azores High displaced but evident. There was times where these northwesterly winds turned into northerlies and northeasterlies though.

The lowest temperature seen during March 1917 was -19.4c at Braemar on the 9th following the bitter but temporary easterly flow whilst Ireland's lowest temperatures were -8.3c at Lisburn, Co. Antrim on the 8th and -6.7c at Birr Castle, Co. Offaly on the 28th.







Now time for April. April 1917 was an exceptional month by any stretch of the imagination. The CET for April 1917 was 5.4c making it the joint 5th coldest April on record back to 1659. Coldest April in the past 35 years in comparison was April 1986 with a CET of 5.8c. This month is remembered infamously for a blizzard that struck Ireland leaving record breaking accumulations and depths in its awakening and the fact it occurred in April makes it ever more fascinating. This month also holds the UK lowest temperature record for April and there was a drought period following the severe cold.

Already plentiful evidence of cold on the 1st April 1917 with an intensely cold northerly flow over the UK and Ireland. To emphasise just how cold this northerly was, parts of the north of the UK had subzero daytime maximum temperatures which in April is extremely unusual. -15.0c was recorded early on 2nd April 1917 at Newton Rigg, Cumbria which is the UK record low for April. At the same time, Eskdalemuir in Dumfries & Galloway recorded -14.4c.



An area of low pressure developed over Ireland on the 2nd April and slowly pushed eastwards. The northeasterly winds increasingly became gusty. There was exceptionally heavy snowfall from this as the low yielded a lot of precipitation and it was snow when it came into the cold weather. There was as much as a snow depth of 1.3m and drifts up to 3m in the south and west of Ireland from this system. East Clare measured a depth of 46cm on level ground. These were likely the heaviest they have seen since February 1892 and probably record breaking. The snowstorms since April 1917 including February 1933, February 1947, December 1962, January 1982 and March 2018 have just not matched the severity of the April 1917 blizzard though of course the different events have had different regions of direct impact so it's not a fair comparison when you look at it that way. Interesting nevertheless to think how Ireland's worst blizzard occurred in the month of April out of all months. I mentioned this nearly over exactly a year ago when I posted briefly about it but I still find it unbelievable!

At Fethard-on-Sea, Co. Wexford, the storm was "phenomenal for this mild coast, probably the greatest for 50 years".

The maximum temperature at Birr Castle on 2nd April 1917 was only 1.1c.



I'll reshare the extract from Symons' Meteorological Magazine on the snowstorm of April 1917 here:

The people in East Clare will long remember Palm Sunday, 1917. A little snow fell on the night of March 31st but it was all melted by noon on April 1st. It began to snow again at 2.45 p.m. on that day and at 5.30 p.m. it was 9 inches deep on all roads about Broadford. Two motor cars came to Broadford early in the afternoon and had to stay there till the morning of the 4th. The mail car left Broadford at 6.40 p.m. for Limerick, and did not get there till the evening of the 2nd. Thus taking 24 hours to do 12 miles. The direct road from Broadford to Killaloe is only 8 miles over the mountain. The first four miles of which, to the village of Kilbane, is nearly level, Kilbane being 200 feet above the sea. A mile further on the road gets to the top of the pass of Slounagalough, 892 feet above the sea. It then falls 700 feet in half-a-mile and the last 2 and a half miles to Killaloe is nearly level. On April 1st, a man named James Vaughan (aged 40) and his nephew, Michael Vaughan (aged 12) who both live at Kilbane drove a trap to Killaloe. On their way home that evening, they were caught in the snowstorm. They left their trap at a farm house at the foot of the eastern side of the pass and started to walk home, leading the horse with them. On the evening of the 2nd, some men went to the top of the pass, looking for sheep that had been lost in the snow and were much surprised to see a horse standing there with a harness on him. In a short time they found the two Vaughans lying dead in the snow. There was very severe frost that night. My thermometer here went down to 16f. Only once before (viz., on February 4th) during the past very severe Winter was it so low. No doubt they were killed by the great cold as there is not a bit of shelter to be found on the "Sap Road" as it is called locally. Very few cars ever go over this road though I have seen a map for motorists on which it was marked as the main road to Killaloe. And it is said that one night, some time ago, a strange motor car did actually drive over the "Sap". The drive no doubt driving by the map.

On Monday, April 2nd, Broadford was quite cut off from the outside world. No mail car came or went. All the roads being quite blocked up with snow drifts several feet deep. The day was very fine however with a bright warm sun. The snow on the level ground where it had not drifted was 12 inches deep. But just about the rain gauge, it was 18 inches deep. That is 6 inches over the rim of the gauge. Never before has the gauge been quite hid by snow during the thirty-two years it has been here.

On Tuesday, April 3rd, it was snowing nearly all day and very cold. A mail car came from Quin railway station at 2 p.m. The road here from there being fairly level ground was not blocked with snow. But the mail car from Broadford to Scariff, which started at 2.30 p.m., ran into a drift two miles from here. The horse fell and the car was smashed and the driver had to return to Broadford. In the evening, one of the motor cars tried to get to Limerick but found the road so blocked with snow that it had to return here.

On Wednesday, April 4th, the Broadford-Limerick road was cleared by the road men. A motor bread van came to Broadford to the great pleasure of everyone.

The greatest previous snowstorm I can remember here was on February 19th 1892. Then it was generally only 5 inches deep. But a severe easterly gale blew the snow off the fields into the cuttings on the roads which were quite blocked up with very deep drifts.

Many old men about here have told me they never saw the snow so deep as it was on the morning of April 2nd.

W.A. Bentley, Lient-Col.
Hurdlestown, Broadford, Co. Clare, 11th April 1917

Further wintry conditions continued into the second week of April but not even close to the severity of the first week.



One final cold shot around the 15th April before the drought took place.



High pressure stubbornly sat over the UK & Ireland or just to the west for the rest of April generally with the exception of some rain at times in the final week over Scotland and the northeast of the UK. Much of Ireland and the west of the UK were completely dry throughout this period and this in fact continued up to the middle of May making it possibly the longest drought in the regions since Spring 1893 although Spring 1938 would later beat this.

The lowest temperature seen in Ireland during April 1917 was -7.2c at Phoenix Park, Co. Dublin on the 1st whilst Lisburn, Co. Antrim recorded -7.8c on the 11th.



This continued into early May too with a very dry May dominated by easterly winds. It was fine and warm for the most part. The warm conditions must have been a huge relief to people from the severe Winter that started back in December although drought conditions were to bring more problems before Summer 1917 was very wet especially August.



Data comes from the UK Met Office and Met Éireann.

1916-17 was the fourth coldest Winter on record at Phoenix Park.

Figure from the February 2009 monthly weather bulletin thus why 2009-10 (mean temp of 2.9c) was not included.

Some well-known cold Winters I've talked about here before like 1880-81, 1894-95 (which I shall be doing an in-depth post on) and 1978-79 (one of my most popular posts I think I've done even though it's a Winter that I never hear talked about by Irish people).

Never see 1950-51 mentioned though and 1976-77 didn't seem like a spectacularly cold Winter judging by synoptics and daily temperature observations but overall stats show it as quite a significantly cold Winter at Phoenix Park. Interesting how that occurred as February 1977 was actually relatively mild.

2010-11's mean temperature for Phoenix Park was 3.7c (largely down to December 2010 at a mean of 0.2c) so it was just outside the top 10 coldest Winters on record for the station. February 2011 at a mean temperature of 7.0c offset it from being an exceptional Winter overall though January was around only a degree below average.

7 years ago today, Cahore in Co. Wexford recorded a maximum temperature of 18.0c which is the second highest temperature for February on record in Ireland. Ashford, Co. Wicklow got up to 17.4c.

On the same day, 18.7c was recorded at Coleshill in England.

New redesigned (though in the same general style) table of selected Irish stations' absolute max temp records with the February 2019 ones added.



Data from Met Éireann.

It's time for another article and this is on Winter 1969-70.... now when do you ever hear this season mentioned or talked about? Very sparsely.... that's for sure. Well, as you might have figured out through many articles I've done, I love to do events/periods that people don't really talk about because it's boring to talk about something everybody knows :P .

Winter 1969-70 follows on from another cold Winter in 1968-69 which had the severe cold February and if you haven't seen that post already, I posted it fairly recently here.

The season had a CET of 3.3c overall (1968-69 had 3.2c in comparison) and it got colder and colder throughout in terms of mean temperatures although January had quite a significant cold spell.

December 1969 was a rather dry and chilly month on the whole although some northern and western parts were wetter than average month where it was also tended to be dull (whilst elsewhere it was the sunniest December since 1960), with fog being a persistent feature. For the majority, it wasn't as cold as December 1968 but a CET of 3.3c was comparable to December 2008 which had a CET of 3.5c.

There was outbreaks of snow on the 4th/5th (a northerly outbreak) and again from the 29th to 31st December (when the winds became easterly). The night of the 13th tended to be the coldest with Kilkenny recording an air minimum of -7.1c.









The easterly at the end of December 1969 set up what was going to be quite a potent cold spell in the early part of January 1970 dominated by northeasterly winds. 4 January 1970 was a particularly cold day with at least 12 Irish stations recording an ice day. Dublin Airport recorded a maximum of -1.1c on the day whilst Casement Aerodrome had a maximum of -0.8c. The lowest reported maximum was -2.5c according to Donegal Storm's analysis but unsure on the location of this. There was frequent snow showers from the 3rd to 5th January.



As high pressure sank southwards over us early on the 7th January, there was a severe frost with Kilkenny recording the lowest temperature of -9.1c. After this initial cold spell at the start of January, the month turned generally milder and the CET overall was 3.7c so not particularly cold. The Atlantic became dominant but notice how there was still blocking lurking to the north of Europe?

It was a dry January in the west and parts of the midlands with less than 60% of the average rainfall including Shannon Airport recording 47.0mm (50% of the average January rainfall) where it was the driest January since 1963. In contrast, the south and southeast were wetter than average with as much as 150% of their average January rainfall indicating a displaced jet stream so it was not a very typical zonal January following the cold spell.



A Scandi High attempted at turning the winds into the east around the 17th but the fetch of the cold air was displaced northwards up to the Shetland Isles due to the Atlantic bringing in milder conditions.



It was not until the early part of February before we saw conditions turning less unsettled/changeable and a northeasterly developed with low pressure diving into central Europe. This was the first of a couple of northwesterly/northerly/northeasterly shots to come during February 1970. They tended to be temporary as deep depressions come out of North America but there was little mild weather. There was heavy snow showers to the north and northwest of the country a lot of the time - as would be expected within a polar maritime air mass.

February 1970 had a CET of 2.9c (the same as February 2018) and was not as cold as February 1968 (1.9c) or February 1969 (1.0c). It was a very sunny month but not as sunny as the exceptional sunny February of 1968.







March 1970 started off wintry with a northerly outbreak and this was going to be the general theme of the month. Hail and snow showers were frequent from the 2nd to the 12th, on the 18th and the 31st. It was not as cold as March 1969 for some but still significantly colder than average nevertheless with anomalies from average being -1.5c below average for a good few stations (would be more using modern averages). The CET for March 1970 was 3.7c, compared to 3.3c in March 1969.



In the UK, there was an unexpected heavy snowfall on 4th March 1970, heavy enough to bring down power lines in Kent. Some parts of Northants. and Beds. reported about 40 cms of snow, with the deepest being nearly 48cm near Northampton. Snow fell heavily for twelve hours across a wide part of the south.



A northeasterly to conclude the month on the 31st bringing yet more snow. I could imagine that people would have been really fed up of the snow by that stage!

It was the least westerly March probably since 1962 with northerlies/northeasterlies being the dominant feature and like February, it was also a very sunny month (which is unusual for a cold March). It was the sunniest February/March combination since 1955.

The maximum temperature reached during March 1970 at Clones, Co. Monaghan was only 11.4c, its lowest March monthly max temperature on record since records began in 1950.

The lowest temperature seen during March 1970 in Ireland at a synoptic station was -6.1c at Birr on the 25th.

Much of the precipitation during March was in the north where it was a wet month but parts of the south of Ireland had an exceptionally dry month with Roches Point recording 17.7mm of rain, only 25% of its average March rainfall.



That wasn't the end of the cold though as April 1970 was another cold month. It was the coldest April at this time since 1941 with a CET of 6.1c. There was a snowstorm over the UK on the 12th which made roads impassable around the Pennines.

Data from Met Éireann and the UK Met Office.

If you either don't have any plans or bored trying to think of something to do, why not pop over to the Weather Rescue and help us learn more about past British/European weather by digitising some station data from the 19th century and early 20th century?

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/edh/weather-rescue/classify