City experiences its third wettest June in 56 years

Date Published: 03-Jul-2012

BY FRANK FARRAGHER

Three years ago when the Volvo Ocean Race sailed into town, the city enjoyed a balmy week of weather . . . alas this morning the mini armada docked after a very wet June, and with little prospect of any Mediterranean conditions on the way.

However it’s not all bad news on the weather front with the prospect of fairly decent days on Friday and Sunday, while during the week we will also enjoy some bright interludes.

It was a very wet June in the city with rainfall for the 30 days coming in at 172.6mms (6.8 inches), according to the NUI Galway Weather Recording Station, making it the third wettest sixth month of the year since recent records began in the city in 1966.

The month of June might be mid-summer, but according to Frank Gaffney’s Climate of Galway records, over the years it has often delivered serious deluges both locally and nationally.

Our wettest ever June in the city was in 1998 (Galway went on to win the All-Ireland football final!) when 196.mms (nearly 8 inches) of rainfall fell, while it was nearly as wet in June of 2008 which brought us 194.6mms of precipitation.

“It was a very soggy June, but down through the years we’ve had some very wet Junes, so I suppose it’s no big surprise. Even though it was very wet, there were other parts of the country that suffered heavier downfalls,” said Mr Gaffney.

Just up the road at Knock, Co Mayo, the June rainfall came in it at 230mms or over 9 inches, while rainfall in Dublin was 178.5mms and 186mms in Roches Point in Cork. There was serious flooding in Belfast and Cork last Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Weather experts are attributing our dank Summer so far to the influence of the Jet Stream, a high altitude, fast-moving air mass moving from West to East that at present is blowing in a series of depressions from the Atlantic.

This brings with it a mix of wind, heavy rains, showery spells and occasional brighter interludes . . . and that is basically the scenario that lies ahead for the rest of this week.

Today (Tuesday) will be cloudy and wet, and while Wednesday will start fairly dry and bright, heavy showers will develop later in the day, some of them possibly thundery. Thursday will have some bright spells but those will be squeezed in between some very heavy showers.

Friday looks like being the best day of the week, bright and sunny with just the risk of the odd shower, but rain will return for a time on Saturday while the prospects look reasonably good for Sunday. All through the week, it will be mild with temperatures of between 17° and 21° Celsius.

According to the BBC’s long term weather forecast for the month of July, the prospects for any settled conditions to return over the coming weeks seem remote.

“Hopes of a more settled spell of weather in the near future are slim. After an exceptionally wet June, the start of July continues on an all too familiar theme. The ‘lows’ keep rolling in,” the BBC July forecast states.

The month of June gone by was slightly cooler than normal: 13.2°C as compared to the average of 14°C. The warmest day of the month came in at 20.9°C and the coolest the thermometer dropped to was 6.6°C.