Santa shares his memories of extreme Christmas Eve weather in Ireland
With weather warnings and storms making headlines in recent days, Santa Claus has written to the children of Ireland to reassure them that he will be able to make his deliveries this Christmas.
Mr Claus reminisced on Christmas Eves past and the extreme weather conditions he and his reindeer have had to battle through to bring gifts to Irish children over the years.
His fastest delivery time was aided by hurricane force winds over 20 years ago.
"A long time ago in 1997, Hurricane force wind speeds of up to 126km/h were recorded during Christmas Eve at Roches Point in County Cork," he wrote.
"This gave us some cause for concern. But the worry didn't last long, the reindeer went even quicker to all the homes."
His slowest delivery time was recorded in the 1970s, when fog hampered his journey.
"In 1973, countrywide fog meant we recorded our slowest delivery time for Ireland, but it was only 21 seconds longer than usual."
Living in the North Pole means Santa is used to weather as cold as -31C. However, he found even colder temperatures flying over Ireland ten years ago.
"In 2008, ten years ago, at a sleigh-flight height of 30km above sea level, I had to put on my warmest coat and woolliest hat with -80.4C being recorded at 05:15am after our final delivery in County Kerry."
Ireland wouldn't be Ireland without a bit of rain, and Santa remembers a day in the early 1990s when he had to wear his waterproof suit.
One of the few times we had to take out the emergency red rain cover was back in 1993 when County Donegal had 161mm of rain in the 24 hours before 9am on Christmas morning. We were going so fast the reindeer were dry in no time at all.
Of course, everyone dreams of a white Christmas, and Santa remembers Ireland's highest Christmas snow depth fondly.
"While refuelling at Casement Aerodrome in County Dublin in 2010, we were told they had the highest Irish Christmas morning snow depth ever recorded of 27cm."
Met Éireann will be keeping Santa up to date with the forecast so he'll be prepared for anything on December 25.
It's safe to say weather will never keep the man in red away on Christmas Day.
Santa's extreme Irish past weather report #santa #believe #pastweather #irishweather https://t.co/z44UquJTkW pic.twitter.com/9sMk9pawWX
— Climate Services @ Met Éireann (@METclimate) December 17, 2018
