Summer 2024 - General Discussion

Feels wilder than anything we had last winter tonight in Galway - wind is howling outside and my cherry blossom tree is bending over in the wind.

Very stormy last night. Wind woke me at both 1am & 2.30am. Lashed rain. Got back to bed at 4.30am and back up at 6am, so running on fumes this morning. Couple of Codipar has taken care of the tiredness headache though and on to coffee numero 2.

13c, grey & damp. N Kildare

I could be wrong but was it 4 days in a row of temperatures of over 25° last September at some Met stations in the Greater Dublin Area/East, with the Met Eireann definition of heatwave being 5 days or more of temperatures above 25° at a Met Éireann station.

Link:

As far as I am aware, there were some inland Met Eireann that breached 25° for up to 6 days in a row in early September last year. So my apologies if you are living in the eastern half of the country but well inland where heatwave conditions did indeed occur ☺️

Think there were a few days early in May of sun but not the heat you'd hope for in the Summer...June bank holiday was decent as well but overall pretty disappointing

Yeah, I could only realistically go with data from official Met Eireann stations as it's verified, and none of the 3 Dublin stations (Dublin Airport, Casement Aerodrome & Phoenix Park) reached heatwave criteria as they did not get 5 days in a row of above 25°. Dunsany in Meath did not meet the criteria either, nor did Mullingar, although Mount Dillon (just west of Longford town, on the Roscommon side of the border) and Oak Park (Carlow) did. And there are others apart from the ones I mentioned.

Looking at the table below for Casement (slightly west of Dublin city), you can see it was nearing the first day of a possible heatwave on the 4th but it didn't quite get there, some other inland stations began their heatwave on the 4th and with Clane being about 15km inland/west of Casement, it's quite plausible that 25° was exceeded there that day. However, Casement had a much lower maximum the following day (despite 7.5 hours of sunshine) so I had a look at the wind data and there was a noticeable breeze from the east on the 5th along eastern areas so that would likely have led to the cooler conditions on that day. If the sea breeze led to a max of 21.1° at Casement on the 5th, I would doubt that the wind would have warmed to 25° or more by the time it reached Clane, especially as the mean wind speed in the early to mid afternoon was around 20-25 km/h. I lived about 15km NNW of Clane until a few years ago and with weather conditions like those on the 5th September 2023, I would begin to feel a slight cooling of the breeze from around lunchtime, resulting in a day that would have been several degrees warmer had the sea breeze not reached me.

The wind on following days at Casement was either lighter, not from the east or a combination of both, hence the much warmer weather again. This was combined with the air mass in general being very warm, resulting in a max of 25.6° on the 7th, despite only 90 minutes of sunshine for the entire day. And just to clarify, the warm air vamoosed on the 10th……it was still warm for the time of year in many places but the heatwave ended everywhere in Ireland on the 9th, unless someone can correct me.

In an effort to try find approximate conditions for the Clane area, I had a look at Wunderground. For some reason, I'm getting incorrect and repetitive historical data for the two non-Met stations in Clane. So I found a station which is showing data that looks to be as OK as can be. This station is just under 8km SW of Clane (and about 2km SW of Mondello race track, for reference), so it would have even more benefit of a sea breeze having warmed up that little bit more, being that bit further inland. As a result, I would expect temperatures to be generally a few degrees warmer than Casement in this setup. The daily conditions for this station are shown below (different format, I'm afraid):

So although this station is further inland than Clane, it still only got to 23° on the 5th, resulting in only 4 days above 25° after that so not a heatwave. The 23° max on the 5th compares well with the corresponding 21.1° max at Casement, over 20km to the ENE, in terms of the sea breeze warming as it travels overland but it also leads me to believe that I think it's very unlikely that the Clane area (or most places within about 50km of the east coast that are not in the lee of substantial hill or mountain ranges) on the 5th of September 2023. For pig iron, I checked the data for a non-official weather station in Edenderry (about 55km from the Irish Sea and about 25km WNW of Clane) and it has a reported max of 24.8 for that day which seems about right for the weather conditions that day.

Jesus, that's some in depth analysis. Anyway, where i was at the time(Marmaris) was most certainly heat wave conditions 😁

I was only going on first hand feedback at the time, although i don't doubt a word you have taken the time to write.

I would be the same. May, June and July were nice and dry but August has been too wet. My local golf course has already brought in placing on the fairway because the ground is soft again. It was playing perfectly from May-July. I adore Autumn so looking forward to it. A week of high pressure and sun in September would be mighty for swimming/snorkeling.

The warm May, Aurora night and Lightning storm will live long in the memory.

Yes. I don't mind it not being too hot as long as I can get out do a bit of hiking and like a bit of warmth for sea swimming.

Found it too wet and cold this summer until this month here in Dublin .

One or two weeks in the Summer months sustained sun without strong winds 22 or 23 degrees is not too much to ask for !

Don't mind if we now get it in September at all but so many people can't enjoy it with school and work commitments unless it falls in holiday time .

the constant cloud really got to me this "summer", it's so low most of the time too. just bloody depressing knowing that basically the rest of the feckin' world gets some kind of a summer apart from us and parts of the UK.

UK met office mentioning a low chance of up of to 80mph for england

Whilst there remains some uncertainty about the details, some very strong winds are likely to develop, with gusts widely in the 50 to 60mph range, with a lower chance that a small core of winds gusting 65-75 mph, perhaps 80 mph, could push quickly east during the morning.

The stats from Dangan on the Corrib show how much the water levels have risen in August. From 95th percentile to above 50th. And that river is controlled by the gates at the Salmon Weir.

Realtime waterlevel

Mace Head is nearing the average rainfall for August (82 v 117) whereas it was hitting 50-60% of average since April. The dry spell was good while it lasted.

I would say in the last 72 hours it has been raining for 65 of them here in south Armagh absolutely shocking few days

The thunderstorms we had recently saved this summer from being a total crapfest for me. If we do get a settled spell in early September let's hope there is a thundery breakdown to end it.

A few years ago we had storms come up from Biscay. Although I agree they are rarer these days.

Also a good thundery episode doesn't necessarily need to be storms moving up from Biscay. We had some great night time storms last week.

Jesus what a night. Late October/November vibe off it. Horrible

I 100% identify with you there TM. But life choices are not so simple as we'd like, so many variables, and just not so easy to live where we really want to be living. Some day.🤞 I keep hoping!

Agree too re "summer" being the absolute worst in Ireland. I find it much easier to settle here outside the May-Sept period, a lot less expectations. Though as a winter enthusiast, I'm usually disappointed there too, but nowhere near as much as in the so called "summer."