Twister on Galway Bay a fake

JULY 2013 will be fondly remembered for its double dip heatwave but the torrential downpours of recent days has meant that rainfall for the month was well above the average in Galway.

The NUI Galway Automatic Weather Recording Station shows rainfall for July coming in at 106mms. or 4.17 inches, as compared to the average for the month of 77mms. or just over 3 inches.

However, reports yesterday of a tornado over Galway Bay have turned out to be untrue – a photo purporting to show a ‘twister’ on the water was a joke that went viral on the internet, the Galway City Tribune has established.

While the rainfall has been welcomed by the city’s green fingered ranks, its timing for the Galway Races could not have been worse with downpours impacting severely on Plate and Hurdle Day crowds.

The NUIG Weather Station yesterday recorded rainfall of over 17mms. for the three hour period from 12 noon to 3pm, coinciding with the start of racing on Ladies Day.

 “It was an unusual weather month We had a fantastic three week period that brought us heatwave conditions for a time but the rains have really bucketed down over recent days,” said weather recorder, Brendan Geraghty.

 The heatwave brought us our hottest day since 1976, when a high of 29.7°C was recorded on Saturday, July 20.

Meanwhile, a photo showing a tornado over Galway Bay off Salthill went viral on the internet yesterday, both on established sites like RTE’s and the Irish Independent’s as well as on social media like Facebook . . . but it’s a hoax!

It was a joke cooked up by chef Michael O’Meara of Oscars Bistro, Dominick Street, who photoshopped an image of the Bay with an image of a tornado from the internet.

“It was just a bit of fun – I never thought it would take off so much,” he told the Galway City  Tribune. “There had been warnings about the possibilities of tornados  so I went out Salthill today just when it was beginning to rain and took a shot over the Bay, then I took a clipping off the internet of a tornado and put it up on our Facebook page

“But it’s gone completely ballistic – one site had 40,000 ‘shares’ the  last time I looked,” he laughed.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune