October driest in almost 40 years
Several parts of the country enjoyed their driest October for nearly forty years, it was revealed today.
Met Éireann’s weather summary for last month showed we had mostly dry, fine and settled conditions with only short spells of rain.
And with sunshine better than usual average temperatures were also one or two degrees above normal everywhere.
In Belmullet, on the Atlantic coast of Mayo, the average air temperature of 13.1C – the highest for October since records began there in 1956.
Forecasters put the good weather down to high pressure influencing weather giving mainly dry conditions with light winds mainly from the south bringing warm air over the country for much of the time.
There were only short spells of wet weather and the west and south-west bore the brunt of the heaviest falls, but rainfall totals for the month were below normal everywhere.
Less than half of the usual October rainfall was recorded in eastern counties and it was the driest for between 35 and 38 years at a number of stations.
The number of wet-days recorded during the month (days with 1mm or more rainfall) was also below normal everywhere: most stations had between five and nine wet-days, but Atlantic coastal stations had between 12 and 14.
