Storm Ciara - Strong Winds & Potential Snow **TECHNICAL DISCUSSION**

ECM 06Z a bit up again, early winds widespread gusting 100 to 120Km/h, up to 130km/h on coasts for a time and looking like the core getting very close to the NW / N coasts in the early afternoon, gusting 130 to 140 km/ h. A lot of fine tuning over the next 36 hrs.

based on this mornings run I think next week's snow risk looks a bit lower. Yesterday was showing very cold most of the way from Monday morning to late Thursday with a brief mild interlude on Wednesday. This mornings run still has it cold on Monday and Tuesday, then mild for Wednesday and cooler on Thursday but not cold enough for snow, so it looks like we are back to a 2 day window for snow.

Most of the snow risk charts are keeping it over the west and north with not much progress into Leinster, except for a patch on the Wicklow Mountains.





Temperatures on Monday and Tuesday look similar, most places staying around 3 to 6C on Monday which would result in any lying snow thawing fairly quickly on low ground. Tuesday is a bit colder with 3 to 4C generally.





Precipitation looks mostly showery in nature with showers becoming lighter and more scattered as they head into Leinster.

Monday GFS snow risk shows most heavy showers across the west and north, Looks a bit dryer towards the east and south.



Tuesday more of the same, some eastern areas could stay dry.


Those snow risk charts can be misleading as they tend to overcook the amount of snow when in reality most of it is showers rather than a constant band of snow. We are still 3 days away from this happening so more upgrades or downgrades to come in terms of snow risk and temperatures.

Winds on Sunday for Storm Ciara still look fairly strong with gusts between 70 and 100km/h across the country, gusts may be higher across the west and south.

It is worth noting that the ECM was over estimating winds speeds for Storm Brendan and Lorenzo. GFS was more in line with reality. It will be interesting to see which model wins out on this occasion.

I'm fully expecting Met Eireann to update warnings this afternoon to a possible Coastal County Orange or even National Orange.

Met Eireann have updated their warnings:

Orange Level Wind Warning - Mayo, Galway, Donegal.
Yellow Level Wind Warning - Everywhere else.

https://www.met.ie/warnings