It’s hot, hot, hot as weather hits 29.6c

THE hottest day of the year was recorded in the city on Friday last when the temperature reached 26.9° Celsius at the NUI Galway Automatic Weather Station.

According to Met. Eireann, Friday’s temperatures are likely to be the highest we’ll experience this year and were caused by the edge of a heatwave that affected Ireland for most of last week.

However the high temperatures accompanied by record humidity levels were not good news for many people, especially those with respiratory disorders.

On the Wednesday morning of July 23, the relative humidity at Knock Airport, as recorded by Met. Eireann stood at 100%, meaning that the air was completely saturated with water vapour. When this happens, the process of sweating – the natural way a body cools down – is greatly restricted leading to a very uncomfortable feeling of being too hot.

The city seems to have escaped the worst of a violent thunderstorm that hit parts of North Galway on Thursday evening last leading to spot flooding in places. Met. Eireann recorded a rainfall figure of 31.9mms. (or 1.25 inches) of rainfall at its Athenry Station on Thursday, most of it falling in an afternoon cloudburst that lasted for close on two hours.

Another mini cloudburst occurred late on Friday night in parts of North Galway after the hottest day of the year, delivering close on half an inch of rain in places.

According to Met. Eireann, our hottest spell of the year in Galway occurred last week from Tuesday through to Friday with temperatures in Athenry recorded, of between 23.6° and 26.7° Celsius over that four day period.

Over the weekend, the mix of high temperatures and thunderstorms eased considerably with temperatures dropping back to the high teens/low 20s in a fresher north-westerly airflow.

That pattern seems set to continue through the first half of this week including Plate Day on Wednesday with any rainfall amounts very small.

However there’s a change for the worse predicted by Met. Eireann from Thursday on with heavy showers in places but at least it shouldn’t be as bad as last year’s torrential downpour that prompted thousands of would-be racegoers to ‘stay put’ in the city’s pubs for Ladies’ Day at Ballybrit.

The showery conditions are predicted to continue over the weekend although there will be some brighter and drier spells too . . . mainly through Friday and Saturday.