Kerry Airport reporting 30°c at 4:30pm, a rare sight indeed.
Broken 3 times inside a week. Beaten twice by .1 of degree ha. Castlederg never got going today, I think that's it now. Could hit 30 again tomorrow but that record should hold.
Reminds me of Sergi Bubka beating his pole vault records by 1cm in the 80s and early 90s. He got paid a bonus when he broke a world record! He was cute.
Currently at 31.1°c here in West Clare which is an all time record (since 2014 - recorded in 2018) for my station. Wonder will it be exceeded?
All the great summers 1995, 1976, 2003 had dips between the peaks of weather and temperature. Mid July 1995 had average temperatures and heavy showers. That years Leinster hurling final between Offaly and Kilkenny was played in awful wet conditions. If someone looked at the highlights they'd conclude that must have been a washout of a summer.
Around 21st July 2003 we had a week of cool showery conditions which gave way to the August heatwave.
If we could tap into continental nheat or a Spanish plume in August it can boost heat by a few degrees.
This is a remarkable home grown heat wave.
Feckit twice in the last hour I've had 29.9 at Roscrea, highest so far. If it happens again I'm going out with a cigarette lighter! 😂
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
My Dillon no data at 5pm
Showing up for me....30°c.
I'm surprised by this because not a whiff of breeze last night. Other night with windows open house had cooled a bit but not last night, didn't sleep a wink+ still no breeze this morning either.
Bring back the rain
On my phone now. At 5.13 I had all bar Mount Dillon.
I'm no expert on the criteria needed but it's one of the Met offices Symnoptic weather stations so I'm sure it meets the standards.
I saw a guy from the met office on the news earlier testing yesterdays reading and said it all looks good and that Ballywatticock record is in doubt. Immaterial now ha
Even my family in BC Canada who are usually dismissive of our usual warm weather in Ireland are deeply impressed at this week .
It's Shannongate all over again!
Yup,I'm calling Shenanigans there
Those pavings radiate a lot of heat
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.
Very hot in west cork, reading about 26/27 degrees. Even the sea breeze is warm!
The heat is intense and breath-taking. It is going to be a long hot sweaty night tonight.
@Gaoth Laidir I think it was Syran who posted that killowen equaled its old record of 30.8c on Saturday and its close to Ballywatticock.
There seems to be very little known about Ballywatticock as a place, never mind its weather station. The coordinates given on the Met Office website just point to an agricultural field, with no sign of a weather station on Google Maps anyway. Ards airport is only 2 km away and it only hit 29 °C around the same time on Saturday.
On a different note, why are soundings only taken from Valentia in the Republic? Same for the north really, why just Castor Bay? Though it's more central whereas Valentia doesn't seem to me to represent what the atmospheric profile would be in the Midlands? Seems like that would be important for T-Storm forecasting?
Did cock fighting take place there in history😉
A few points about those locations. Not exactly sure where Ballywatticock is either lol - never heard of it before. But Killowen would have been well sheltered by the Mournes on Saturday when the flow was more northerly. I could see it being hot there that day. Whereas, Newtownards is really more exposed to Belfast Lough and then Strangford Lough. I could see how a flow coming from Belfast Lough direction could temper the max there last Saturday. Belfast City airport nearby is almost always affected due to this.
At least the Armagh 31.4 beats Castlederg and hopefully it's a grassier site.
They're rare though in Ireland. I find anyway. I love a good dramatic thunderstorm but haven't seen many of them in our fair isle. When I saw my first proper one in Corfu five years ago, I was in awe. It was stunning. I had never seen anything like it in Ireland. Even the lightning we do get seems boring and unbranched compared to the Greek drama I saw in 2016.
Have you availed of the Belmullet Tidal Pool during this heatwave? I'm a little obsessed with trying it out but it's too far away for me at the moment. If you have used it, does it get warm in hot weather?
My understanding is it's because our prevailing winds are Southwesterly, so Valentia is a good sounding location in terms of what's "on the way" for the rest of the island. At least that was the reasoning back in the day before modern forecasting.
Durrow says 31.2c. Down around 29c now
Barra Best posted a video of the station on Twitter and it's right beside a big hedge.
https://twitter.com/barrabest/status/1416723410009341957
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wc.vanillicon.com/v2/c50f1c871638bccbbf9aa952593dd0cd.svg)
