Warmer microclimates in Ireland

I bet Ye all are saying, "Haha! I knew Calibos would be one of the first to post in this thread" right about now

In reply to the OP....



Given the prevailing South Westerlies, Bray and Greystones are some of the only large towns on the east coast almost totally sheltered by the Wicklow/Dublin mountains. We are only totally exposed to winds with an easterly component or a Southerly. Even the 'Dublin' mountains afford us some shelter in a northerly. Most of Dublin is totally exposed in the prevailing winds and even the likes of Arklow which gets the 'Sunny South East' climate is quite a bit more exposed than Bray and Greystones as they only have the lower southern hills of the Wicklow mountains between them and the prevailing winds while we have the highest portion of the range between us and the prevailing winds.

In practice this means the Wicklow mountains soaks up a lot of the rain coming in on the prevailing winds like a sponge. Well, whatever rain actually makes it the whole way across the country to the Wicklow mountains on the East coast. If its lashing rain in Bray, I know it must have been torrential on the other side of the mountains in the Midlands. One can monitor this dissipation of rain over the mountains on the rainfall radar (Raintoday.co.uk). Sometimes it literally looks like there is an invisible force-field across the Wicklow mountains protecting Bray. ie. The radar returns just vanish over the middle of the mountains. Looking at the Visible and Infrared of cloud cover on Sat24 one often sees the cloud dissipate or look like its diverting around the mountains.

The maritime air from the Irish sea very often keeps a lid on convective cloud formation and the coastal strip on which we reside remains cloud free and blue skied while the rest of the country clouds of hazes over after mid day when convection really gets going.

Then we also get the temperature topup benefit of the 'Fohn Effect' where an airmass gains about 2ºc as it sinks down into the lee of a mountain range.

So Bray as you can see really benefits from its particular location and surroundings on the East coast and could be classed as having a micro climate. However, depending on whether you are a snow bunny or not, when it comes to snow it either loses out as a kind of meteorological payback or it just gets better and better. If you hate snow then it just keeps getting better. Bray only gets snow in the very biggest snow events. The 82's,87's,2010's etc. Very Lucky to get a days dusting anytime else. Its incredibly rare to get snow in Ireland if the wind has any southerly component. If there is any Westerly component to the winds carrying the snow then the same mountains that soak up the rain for Bray also soak up most of the snow. When the east coast is getting 'lake effect' snow trains/streamers coming in from the Irish sea on easterlies, Brays position right smack bang in the middle of the eastcoast means that only two very particular wind directions will deliver us snow. NNE and ENE. Only in those two directions is the Sea fetch long enough for the streamers to develop and drop snow on us.

If its coming from the east, Angelsey in Wales straight across the Irish Sea from us means the sea fetch is too short. Then there is the dreaded IOM Snow Shadow (Isle of Mann). It creates a snow shadow because the fetch between the IOM and the east coast isn't long enough for beefy snow streamers to develop. If the wind direction means the IOM snow shadow is aimed at North Leinster, Brays position in the middle of the East coast puts us at the southern edge of the snow shadow. If the IOM Snow shadow is aimed at Southern Leinster then Brays position has us at the Northern edge of the shadow. Its literally just NNE and ENE that'll give Bray snow from the Irish Sea.

So if you hate snow then there are literally no downsides to Brays micro-climate or geographical location. However, if like me you are a Snow Bunny, then the Lack of Snow in Bray is payback for all the upsides we benefit from.

pauldry wrote: »

grange co sligo is warmer than sligo town or ballisodare

[...]

Mullaghmore even better than Grange!

You can grow many sub-tropical plants on Valentia Island because frost and snow is rare there.

North Dublin has a particularly dry micro climate (even though Wexford is the "Sunny South East", North Dublin is drier). There may be records in Kinsealy (Teagasc, previously AFT).

Here's data from Kinsealy Research Station, if anyone wants to do some comparative analysis!
http://www.ipfn.ie/publications/listing/teagasc-kinsealy-weather-data-20082011/

I've a sister that lives in Cloonacool in Sligo (near Markree Castle), and jaysus any time I visit her its always freezing and more often than not, wet. She seems to get a decent amount of snow every winter though. She thinks 17C is a hot summers day

Kilkenny has its own micro-climate as seen when we had an official met office.

Anyone who knows Kilkenny knows it is saucer shaped in that the centre is flat but surrounded by hills that rise to over 300 metres above sea level.
This has lead to hottest recorded temperature for Ireland at 33.3C but then when we get cold weather it can be one of the coldest places in Ireland.
It went below -16c in 2010.

However on the hills we see less of a temperature range than those on the flat plains of Kilkenny.
Nights are often warmer than lower down, they could have frost lower down but up on the hills no frost.
You could be in Kilkenny city with fog and if you go up the hills, you might have a lovely sunny day looking down on a sea of fog.
The reverse can happen on the hills with low cloud.

The hills on the Kilkenny/Tipperary border can often kill off showers moving from the west.
I was reading an environment report and it said the hills in Kilkenny receive about 20% more rainfall than the lowlands of the county.

Because the hills have less of a temperature range, while they don't get as cold at night, in winter especially they don't warm up like lower down does.
So you could be in Kilkenny city and have rain or sleet, and as happened about 5 and half years ago, they had rain in the city, but 5 miles away on the hills we had a blizzard and snow upto 3 feet deep.

The other day the man delivering the groceries was talking about the rain, told him we had avoided it all and had no rain this month so far.

Kilkenny is a good place for weather enthusiasts.