Summer 2021 General Discussion

Last night was provisionally the first tropical night in Ireland for 20 years, with Valentia in Kerry not observing any temperature under 20.5°C

Tropical nights (shaded air above 20°C all night) are rare in Ireland having only occurred around 6 times in the digital record.

It's actually quite windy in Cork but still very, very warm

😁

This cold spell is pretty hard to stick, eh??

It's been a good one for the eastern side of NI too. And my home grown, pretty damn good tan is evidence of that 😁

One thing missing from this summer (so far anyway) is a good, epic night time storm. We had some night time lightning one night last summer here in NI, but other than that I'd have to go back to August 2017 for the last proper night time storm here (which was a very good one).

And my definition of a good storm is lightning every 30 seconds or less and 10's to 100's of flashes rather than just an isolated flash or two.

On my place in Belmullet atm and its like Majorca for intense searing heat!! - as well as the high temps in the West, Dublin AP @ 26c currently is also notable as it comes with a steady 10kt easterly straigt off the Irish Sea!!

Mt.Dillion reporting 30°c at 4pm.

Shannon, Athenry and Newport reporting 29°c.

A plethora of Stations on 27/28°c. Lowest reported temperature was 23°c in both Roches Point and Malin Head. Not a bad day when the lowest temperature in Ireland is 23°c!

My station here in West Clare now showing 30.8°c. Sunshine much stronger than earlier, tropical feeling.

I hope all the people that complained about the hot weather are happy, its their fault its coming to an end. Noticeably cooler here in Athenry today. Not that its actually cooler according to the official station but there is a noticeable breeze on my side of town. I must take a wander into Teagasc some day and see where the weather station is, there are a lot of buildings, concrete and tarmac over in the facility in general.

Kerry Airport reporting 30°c at 4:30pm, a rare sight indeed.

Also, the Castlederg photo shows a fair bit of paving around the Stevenson Screen. I wonder if that helped it's temp a notch or two? Would have expected the instrument to be totally surrounded by grass?

Link to the pic here :- https://twitter.com/barrabest/status/1418175813397135360

Showing up for me....30°c.

On the phone and trying to post a table of the 850-hPa temperatures from the Valentia and Castor Bay soundings over the past week, but who knows how it'll go with this new site. I hate it. It's been easier to use Excel on my phone than use this site. Anyway, here it is...

The highest at Valentia was actually on the 16/17th (15°C), which tallies fairly well the rule of thumb of adding 15 to it for estimating the max surface temperature, though that's a very crude rule. At this time of the year, consecutive days of high insolation, dry ground, light winds and that inversion have allowed us to squeeze a couple more degrees out of it. Plus, it's the temperature around 150 hPa above the surface should be taken, which, in the case of high surface pressure, is more like 870-880 hPa, not 850 hPa.

The 31.2 °C at Ballywatticock on Saturday 17th seems to be a bit out of whack with this rule, especially given that the highest other stations in the area and Northern Ireland were 28-29 °C on that day. I have my doubts about that reading on that day.

Yesterday's high of 31.3 in Castlederg seems a lot more believable, given that, although the 850 temp was only around 13 °C, there was the cumulative effect of previous days' heating and that other stations registered around 30-31.