The West had hottest Summer in Ireland!

The West was the place to be in Ireland during the month of August, being the hottest with drier, sunnier and milder weather than the East Coast.

Thousands of tourists, who flocked to the city during the peak holiday month, enjoyed a far drier time than those who spent their vacations in the Dublin area.

Rainfall in the city for the month of August was recorded at 94.4mms. (3.72 inches) at the NUI Galway Automatic Weather Station – close to that amount fell in one day at Dublin Airport in the early part of the month.

On the Saturday of August 2, 84mms. (3.3 inches) of rain fell at Dublin Airport with the capital having an overall precipitation figure of 173mms. (nearly 6 inches) for the eighth month of the year.

According to the Met. Eireann monthly report for August, the coastal fringes of the West tended to be milder than the East, although everywhere it was a cooler month than normal.

The average temperature for the month at the NUIG station came in at 14.6° Celsius, almost one degree cooler than the mean for August as per Frank Gaffney’s Climate of Galway statistics for the past half century.

Overall it was another quite dry summer period (June to August) in the West with just 195.6mms (7.7 inches) of rain falling over the three months – June and July were especially dry. Total rainfall for June was just under two inches and for July it was slightly over the two inch mark.

Using what is known as a Poulter Index – that measures mean temperatures, rainfall and sunshine – Met Eireann have rated the Summer of 2014 as our 11th best of the past half century.

Although we didn’t get any repeat of the heat wave conditions of last year, this Summer was actually drier – 1.7 inches less rain fell from June to August of 2014 as compared to the same period in 2013.

North Galway weather recorder, Brendan Geraghty, collected just 3.13 inches of rain during the month of August reflecting local variations, but it was wetter at the Athenry Met Office station with nearly 104mms. (over 4 inches) of rain falling over the 31 days.

“Overall it was a really nice Summer in the West and we just got enough rain to keep the gardeners and the farmers happy.

“One of the most unusual patterns of our summer weather was that it tended to be drier and sunnier in the West as compared to the East Coast,” said Brendan Geraghty.

Believe it or not, the sunniest place in Ireland, not only in August but right through the Summer, was the north-western Mayo coastal town of Belmullet.

Its 603 hours of sunshine for the three summer months, and its August total of 235 hours, beat ‘hands down’ all challengers, including the so called ‘sunny South East’, for the title of Ireland’s sunniest spot during 2014.