EVER WONDERED WHICH parts of Ireland have the best – and the worst – weather?
We can probably make some guesses and there hasn’t been any drastic changes, but if you’re looking at buying a house or booking a holiday, it’s the kind of information you’ll want to have a good grasp of.
In an interview with The Journal, Met Éireann’s Head of Forecasting Eoin Sherlock gave a rundown of how different regions of the country tend to fare.
“The wettest parts of the country are the high ground along the west coast,” Sherlock said.
“The southeast, in general, would have drier conditions. There’s a reason why it’s called the sunny southeast! Wexford does quite well in terms of heat and sunshine, and less rainfall.”
Dublin is afforded some protection from the rain by nearby the Wicklow Mountains.
“Believe it or not, Dublin does well, because the Wicklow Mountains take the sting out of a lot of the weather,” Sherlock said. “The rain hits the mountains and rains down generally on the west side of the mountains.”
“Unfortunately, a lot of the western coastal counties from the southwest to the northwest, they take the brunt of the rain that comes in off the Atlantic.
“In terms of wind, the Midlands would probably be less windy. The downside of the Midlands would be that it can be quite foggy at times, especially during the winter months.
“The Midlands does quite well in terms of weather, but I suppose it’s probably the southeast of the country, particularly Wexford, which would probably fare best in a lot of areas — sunshine hours, temperatures, and not as much rain.”
On average, the country overall gets around 380mm of rain in the winter and 282mm of rain in the summer.
A Met Éireann study earlier this year identified that all seasons are becoming rainier due to the impacts of climate change.
“With temperature increases, the air can hold more moisture in it. It’s getting warmer out there, so the air can carry more rain, and then that rain falls down,” Sherlock said.
Ireland also has significant cloud cover, he said, more so than some other nearby countries.
“We wouldn’t have many sunshine hours. That’s a real issue. If you have a kid, you have to give them vitamin supplements because we just don’t get the sunshine hours.”
But communicating messages like this to the public, as well as forecasts and weather warnings, is a challenge as people tune in less to traditional weather updates on the TV.
“With the demographics nowadays, the way people consume information has changed. We’ve got to focus a lot on social media to try to catch the younger generation, try to get the warnings out. The conventional idea of people watching the weather forecast on TV after the news isn’t every demographic,” Sherlock said.
“Most people have mobile phones now and have a weather app by default, but it could be one that Android or Google or Apple or iOS have installed on it. It wouldn’t necessarily be the Met Éireann app.
“It’s very difficult to get 100% coverage in terms of a warning. That’s why we’re looking at different approaches like social media. We’re trying to do more videos, because I imagine going forward, video is king. We need focus on that rather than just on linear television.”
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