Summer 2024 - General Discussion

Wet dark miserable morning in Leitrim 11C. It reached the dizzy heights of 17C yesterday when the sun managed to peak out from the clouds.

Yesterday was a really nice day and I managed 2 swims. Today is going to be very wet, during work hours at least. I have really noticed river/lake water levels rising in the west since start of August. I am amazed that Dublin Airport has only received 8mm of rain so far in August - the east is keeping the dry pattern going. Hope skies are clear for the blue moon later.

Agreed. Barely 1mm of rainfall here in Limerick City today so far and looking at the radar the front seems to be breaking up as it moves east.

This is how August has looked so far. It's another +NAO month but compared to June and July which were primarily NW'ly driven feeding in relatively cool air often from the North Atlantic, August has been much more southwesterly drawing in tropical maritime air from the central Atlantic increasing the humidity and overall temperatures relatively speaking. But that also means more chance of rain as this wind direction combined with low pressure gives way to high moisture levels. An atmospheric river setup if I've ever seen one.

One quirky thing though has been just how dry the east has been here, particularly the Dublin area. Belmullet is on a rounded 109mm to the 18th whilst Dublin Airport is just on a rounded 9mm, 100mm less. We can often see a significant difference in these setups between the west and east but this is rather peculiar.

It seems that fronts have either just gotten stuck to the northwest or they lose all their moisture as they come down the country with ridging nearby to the southeast but not quite getting over Ireland to delivering a good summery spell. Not sure how true this is but seen suggestion that this could be down to a deceleration in winds aloft and increased sinking motion in the upper troposphere suppressing the formation of convergence lines and reducing moisture? I don't know but it's an interesting case.

The rainfall will be even more pronounced by end of August. Some of the West might get 200mm while the East may not get over 40mm

I completely agree. We had a very dry May/June/July in the west but it was colder than average. I thoroughly enjoyed it because it was bright and dry - the "cold" never bothered me in the slightest. We will know all about real cold soon enough. My golf handicap improved no end but has been rising again since the wetter weather started in August. I did notice that I didn't do half as much kayaking as last May/June because it was colder and somewhat windier. Dry trumps all in my opinion. Like Sryan, I am amazed that Dublin has only got 9mm of rain so far in August despite the pivot to warmer south westerlies. I'd take that for sure.

Up to 105mm for minth in Sligo today 18mm and still it rains