The extraordinary nature of last month’s weather has been confirmed by Met Éireann, with an analysis showing July was “one of the hottest, driest and sunniest months on record for Ireland”.
The impact of the hot and dry spell is becoming more pronounced, with 64 towns, villages and surrounding areas in 12 counties now under night-time water restrictions as lakes and reservoirs deplete.
While the entire country remains under a hosepipe ban, which prohibits specified uses of water deemed unnecessary until August 26th, areas under night-times restrictions imposed by Uisce Éireann have even greater limitations being applied in some places for a full 12 hours from 8pm to 8am.
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The country as a whole received barely one-sixth of its average rainfall for July and some places recorded just over 1mm of rain for the entire month, Met Éireann said in its climate statement for last month.
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There was 1.1mm of rain recorded at Cork Airport and Moore Park, Co Cork, with 1.5mm landing at Oak Park, Co Carlow, and Johnstown Castle, Co Wexford.
All 25 Met Éireann weather stations recorded lower-than-average rainfall for their regions, with 20 experiencing what is classified as absolute drought. This means that for at least 15 consecutive days, no day had more than 0.2mm of rain – a barely perceptible amount.
The remaining five had ‘partial droughts’, meaning the average rainfall over at least 29 days did not exceed 0.2mm.
In several parts of the east and southeast, partial droughts were continuing into early this week, passing the 45-day mark.
It was second-hottest July in 126 years, with almost all areas hotter than average. Heatwave conditions – five consecutive days with temperatures above 25 degrees – were officially declared at seven of the 25 weather stations.
At Moore Park, the heatwave lasted for 13 days, just shy of the all-time record set in Offaly and Laois in 1976. But while the stretch of hot weather was one day behind the 1976 record, the temperatures were far ahead.
The average temperature 50 years ago, taking day and night into account, was 17.9 degrees while the average at Moore Park last month was 20.4 degrees.
While temperatures have taken a dip this week and many parts of the country have had some rain, Met Éireann’s extended range forecast shows the probability of more above-average temperatures and below-average rain throughout the rest of August.
Johnstown Castle had 332.4 hours of sunshine last month, during what was the sunniest month there on record. It also provisionally broke the national record for the sunniest month, which had been 308.2 hours recorded at Valentia, Co Kerry, in July 1955.
Phoenix Park reported 36 consecutive days with maximum daily temperatures above 20 degrees between June 30th and August 3rd, surpassing the previous record of 34 days at Shannon Airport set in July-August 1995. The park’s previous record was 27 days in July 1989.
The month’s lowest temperatures were recorded on Friday, July 31st. The lowest air minimum of 5.1 degrees was reported at Mullingar, Co Westmeath, and the lowest grass minimum (0.7 degrees) was reported at Dunsany, Co Meath.
The highest maximum temperature (30.0 degrees) was reported on July 12th at Valentia Observatory in Co Kerry, the station’s highest temperature on record.
There was no air or ground frost reported during the month.
Seventeen of the 25 weather stations reported their driest July on record, with Cork Airport (1.1mm), Moore Park (1.1mm), Oak Park (1.5mm) and Johnstown Castle (1.5mm) having their driest month on record.
