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What a year of weather !!

  • 26-06-2018 9:53pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 14,279 ✭✭✭✭


    I was just thinking, from Ophelia's visit in mid-October of 2017 to the current heat wave, we have seen quite a year of weather in Ireland (and it's not even a year in total yet).

    Perhaps I am forgetting a few other events, but certainly the cold spells in late February, the record snowfalls around 27 Feb to 1 Mar and now this heat wave threatening to set new records, all in one period of less than a year, rather unusual in total. I guess from Debbie (Sept 1961) to the winter of 1962-63 was not a lot longer interval but there was no notable heat wave anywhere in that time frame.

    Would you consider any other events from August 2017 on to be worth including, since otherwise this year can collect more notoriety all the way to October 2018.

    I think that windstorm where Knock had the 84 knot gust was rather unusual too, on 2 Jan if I remember right, then later in January came Frederike but that was more of a blast in eastern England and especially the Netherlands.


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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    Chaotic, unexpected and extreme weather spells are probably going to become the norm.

    Soft days are so 20th century.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,976 ✭✭✭Artane2002


    It doesn't really count I guess but we had some very impressive fog here in Dublin around 10-11 January.

    The northwesterlies during the winter were very good too. The number of frontal snowfall events during the winter was quite notable too, around 5 or 6 times I think?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,877 ✭✭✭JanuarySnowstor


    An extra ordinary year as you say.
    Hurricanes, snow storms and now a serious drought and heatwave.
    For a country that normally sports a benign weather type (never too hot or cold) it's been truly remarkable.

    Bay of biscay severe storms this weekend would be the icing!


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,976 ✭✭✭Artane2002


    I wonder if we'll see a notable tornado this year. I hope not because tornadoes scare me!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,023 ✭✭✭Donegal Storm


    The past few months have certainly been fascinating, obviously there was the late and extreme winter but the way we essentially skipped Spring and went straight from winter to summer was also interesting, from no growth and snow on the ground to everything in full bloom within a few weeks. There's probably been more clear sunny days since late April than in the past 5 years combined and an almost total lack of wet days.

    Now if only we could get a massive slow moving supercell to travel across the country when this spell ends it'd cap things off nicely :D In my 30 odd years living here I've yet to see a truly impressive thunderstorm


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,027 ✭✭✭MidMan25


    An extra ordinary year as you say.
    Hurricanes, snow storms and now a serious drought and heatwave.
    For a country that normally sports a benign weather type (never too hot or cold) it's been truly remarkable.

    Bay of biscay severe storms this weekend would be the icing!

    Got those last month in East Cork \ Waterford. Certainly the most significant and sustained thunderstorms I can recall in my lifetime.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,235 ✭✭✭Oneiric 3


    Lightning storm earlier this month was the highlight for me this year. Hopefully just a taster of what is to come this summer.

    New Moon



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,477 ✭✭✭✭sryanbruen


    Some things that come to my mind:

    - Longest spell of 20c+ days for late May/early June on record at Shannon Airport since its records began
    - Lowest March/Spring maximum temperatures on record (at least that we know of) for Ireland (UK also beat their lowest March/Spring maximum temperature on record)
    - Record breaking SSW event with two very severe zonal wind reversions taking place nearly simultaneously (many years we barely get one at all or to this severity)
    - Ex-hurricane Gert bringing thundery rain to the north on 22nd August 2017 including 77.2mm at Malin Head
    - Very good May Day Bank Holiday Weekend and the warmest early May Bank Holiday Monday on record in the UK (not sure for Ireland) (you can't say that often!)
    - Constant lightning flashes on the night of May 26th/27th
    - Mt Dillon recording 25mm under an hour in a thunderstorm on June 8th with a 9 degree drop in temperature during the period


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,834 ✭✭✭pauldry


    In Sligo

    No Grass grew until May coz of cold
    No grass has grown much since mid June
    Notable storms especially all the ones that WERENT Ophelia or Emma
    most recently Hector causing widespread power outages and downed trees
    Long spell of days over 19c in late May and June
    Only 2 wet days of over 15mm in the whole of May and nearly all of June


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,797 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    Artane2002 wrote: »
    I wonder if we'll see a notable tornado this year. I hope not because tornadoes scare me!!

    I've always been utterly fascinated by tornadoes (anyone else watch the Nature's Rage videos from Readers Digest as a kid? :D ) but they now scare me a lot less than they used to. Not because they're any less dangerous or powerful, but because science has come so far since the 1990s. In both that RD documentary and the film Twister, also made in the mid-90s, the point is repeatedly made that tornadoes were so deadly in part because the average tornado warning was in the region of 3-5 minutes for a given location. NOAA now cites 13 minutes as the average, which is close to the "holy grail" of a 15 minute warning which is cited in both the documentary and film from the 90s.

    It also feels like they're now able to give much broader, "macro" tornado forecasts, less in the sense of "A tornado is going to hit Cabra in the next twenty minutes" and more so "A dangerous supercell is forming over the Northwest inner city, we advise evacuation as tornadoes are a major likelihood throughout the day". That seems to be the approach taken in Tornado Alley in the US these days - they differentiate between a "tornado watch" and a "tornado warning", which is definitely a newer development.
    I imagine the smartphone era also makes it a lot harder to miss or fail to notice a tornado warning - I don't know this, but I'd be incredibly surprised if there wasn't some kind of local message service in those regions which allows the local government or met office to beam urgent alerts directly to peoples' phones.

    In short, tornadoes are still an extremely dangerous force of nature, but the "turn up suddenly and entirely unannounced" nature of them has diminished somewhat with modern science.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,473 ✭✭✭Jpmarn


    End of a long tough winter and an early and possibly a long fine summer. Even with a summer windstorm Hector.


  • Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    I really only pay attention to wind direction because it affects my cycle commute, but it seems to me that much of the extraordinary weather this year is being caused by easterlies. I've never seen a year with so many easterlies, so sustained. Usually it's a couple of days every 4 or 5 months.

    Is this just a statistical blip, or could this signal a longer-term trend; some indefinite change in the N.Atlantic Drift?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,485 ✭✭✭Billcarson


    The icing on the cake would be if we could get a white Xmas 2018.


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,797 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    Billcarson wrote: »
    The icing on the cake would be if we could get a white Xmas 2018.

    I vote we start ramping the minute this heatwave is over :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 706 ✭✭✭Tae laidir


    No Spring. Straight from Winter to Summer.
    Larger Continental Climatic influences at the expense of Temperate.
    Long-lasting weather patterns.
    Meandering Jet-Stream.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,668 ✭✭✭SleetAndSnow


    The snow we had in Cork City this year was amazing, especially for us Younger generation who really haven't seen any proper snow down here. Really magical.

    Also the lightning storm during May that lasted 3+ hours non stop was amazing. Stayed up all night watching it.

    And of course Ophelia hit us hardest down South, Roofs flying off school halls and flying through the air, stadiums collapsing and stakes being flown through peoples roofs!

    What a year its been alright.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    The past few months have certainly been fascinating, obviously there was the late and extreme winter but the way we essentially skipped Spring and went straight from winter to summer was also interesting, from no growth and snow on the ground to everything in full bloom within a few weeks. There's probably been more clear sunny days since late April than in the past 5 years combined and an almost total lack of wet days.

    Now if only we could get a massive slow moving supercell to travel across the country when this spell ends it'd cap things off nicely :D In my 30 odd years living here I've yet to see a truly impressive thunderstorm

    Had a 72 hour one in Donegal some years ago..


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,096 ✭✭✭✭Danzy


    Billcarson wrote: »
    The icing on the cake would be if we could get a white Xmas 2018.

    It will be thirty in the shade this Christmas with foot of snow on St Stephens.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,023 ✭✭✭Donegal Storm


    Graces7 wrote: »
    Had a 72 hour one in Donegal some years ago..

    When was that?

    I remember a good one in the late 90's one summer with big forks across the sky and thunder that shook the house for about 2-3 hours. I was only a young fella back then though and more annoyed that I had to come home from the beach than trying to enjoy the storm.

    Had a few good winter storms as well with big hail squalls and loud thunder but I've never seen a good continental style storm here with huge convection, shelf clouds and strobe lightning, hopefully some day...


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,370 ✭✭✭✭Kermit.de.frog


    I was just thinking, from Ophelia's visit in mid-October of 2017 to the current heat wave, we have seen quite a year of weather in Ireland (and it's not even a year in total yet).

    Perhaps I am forgetting a few other events, but certainly the cold spells in late February, the record snowfalls around 27 Feb to 1 Mar and now this heat wave threatening to set new records, all in one period of less than a year, rather unusual in total. I guess from Debbie (Sept 1961) to the winter of 1962-63 was not a lot longer interval but there was no notable heat wave anywhere in that time frame.

    Would you consider any other events from August 2017 on to be worth including, since otherwise this year can collect more notoriety all the way to October 2018.

    I think that windstorm where Knock had the 84 knot gust was rather unusual too, on 2 Jan if I remember right, then later in January came Frederike but that was more of a blast in eastern England and especially the Netherlands.


    MT - in terms of excitement and weather around the globe, could not have gone far wrong with Ireland the last 9 months.

    Extraordinary. Even the British are jealous. :p


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  • Registered Users Posts: 14,279 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    You did really well with your early warning threads on the two biggest stories in 2018, can't recall without looking back how we started to track Ophelia. A good year for the weather forum too.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,355 ✭✭✭✭Mr.Crinklewood


    Amy stats for the weather forum comparing June 2016 - June 2017 to June 2017 to now?

    Eg posts, views, etc?


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,477 ✭✭✭✭sryanbruen


    Can we add unusually warm westerly to the list of weird weather for this year? :P


  • Registered Users Posts: 624 ✭✭✭Mullaghteelin


    At the least the east coast is finally getting some real heat. It would be nice if we had a few decent thunderstorms before the summer is out.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,979 ✭✭✭Slashermcguirk


    east finally getting some real heat? It has been between 25 and 28 a lot this summer. Do you mean literally the east coast? I think Carlow has had over 30 degrees a few times as had Kilkenny, south east admittedly but still east. Phoenix park in Dublin has had quite a lot of days with between 25-28 degrees and Dublin Airport has had only 28mm of rain in nearly 3 months. I would say you could count on one hand when the phoenix park went under 20 the whole summer.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,003 ✭✭✭Lucreto


    It has been a strange year for weather. Its like the jet stream didn't recover from the SSW event back in February.

    Hopefully we get another really cold and snowy winter out of it before things return to normal.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,473 ✭✭✭Jpmarn


    It is a year that doesn’t suit farmers at all. It is a year that robbed fodder off us. I could say that there was only two months of decent grass growth so far in 2018. In a normal year we should have about 5 months grass growth by now. Grass didn’t grow earlier this year because it was too cold and wet. It's not growing now because it is too dry and hot.


  • Registered Users Posts: 787 ✭✭✭babi-hrse


    Our wind is coming from the east no evaporated clouds coming from Europe's landmass whereas traditionally it came from the west picking up all the sea water and pissing it all down on the first landmass it saw as relief rain which always happened to be Ireland and Scotland.
    Snow from Russia one could assume dry skies from Russia too.
    Only hope is that the gulf stream does not change direction too or we will have penguins in cork


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,796 ✭✭✭Calibos


    Lucreto wrote: »
    It has been a strange year for weather. Its like the jet stream didn't recover from the SSW event back in February.

    Hopefully we get another really cold and snowy winter out of it before things return to normal.

    Move over M.T. Cranium, Kermit de frog and SryanBruen, Calibos is in da house!!

    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=106335523&postcount=1571


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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,477 ✭✭✭✭sryanbruen


    Commentary from Siobhán Ryan (including an analysis of Ophelia) in the link below on the past year's exceptional weather.
    Information to follow was included by Siobhán Ryan on Monday 16th October.

    One year on from Ophelia, and what an exceptional 12 months it has proved to be.

    https://www.met.ie/forecasters-commentary


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