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Rain, rain and more rain: What is driving the recent wet weather Ireland has been experiencing?

Record rise in sea temperatures in the North Atlantic caused by climate change is a factor, says Met Éireann

After a very warm and dry June in 2023, it began to rain heavily in July and the trend has scarcely stopped since. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times
After a very warm and dry June in 2023, it began to rain heavily in July and the trend has scarcely stopped since. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times
Ronan McGreevy's picture
Ronan McGreevy
Tue Mar 26 2024 - 14:51

Even by Irish standards the recent spell of wet weather feels like one of the most protracted in living memory.

But it is more than a feeling, it is being borne out by fact.

Last June was one of the warmest and driest on record. It then began to rain heavily in July and the trend has scarcely stopped since. The rest of summer 2023 was a wash out. Things then got worse, with parts of the south and southeast recording their wettest autumns on record.

There was no respite during the winter, with the west of Ireland being hit particularly hard. Named storms and weather warnings came at a steady clip and, all in all, 2023 was the third wettest year on average.

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This has continued into the spring, with March shaping up to be one of the wettest on record. Rainfall is already well above the monthly average and there’s almost a week of the month left to go. Precipitation levels are currently running at an average of 115 per cent higher than normal.

[ Warmest February to date was recorded last month, EU service reports ]

In addition, there has been precious little drying with just 50 per cent of the expected sunshine for the month recorded.

Respite is not necessarily on the way, with the long-term forecast for the next three months for northern Europe indicating there will be more of the same.

The culprit, says Met Éireann climatologist Paul Moore, is climate change, specifically in the North Atlantic which has now seen record sea temperatures consecutively for more than a year.

“That adds to a lot of warmth and moisture into the air over the Atlantic,” he adds. “With our prevailing south-westerlies, there is a lot more moisture available under those circumstances. When low pressure is in control of our weather, we are getting more rain.”

Flooding
Flooding in Northern Ireland last November. Photographs: PA

Climate change models forecast not only warmer temperatures for Ireland, but also wetter weather. An average increase of 7 per cent in annual rainfall over the baseline – between 1960 to 1990 – is expected and is already happening, Moore says.

The long-term average North Atlantic sea temperature is at 19.2 degrees but, according to the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), sea temperatures are now at an average of 20.4 degrees, up 0.4 degrees on last year’s record levels.

“This is a significant rise,” Moore says. “This has been one of the main features that climate scientists have been talking about. It is a major area of research at present. We are already living in a changed climate.”

Another factor is the 2023-2024 El Niño phenomenon, above average sea surface temperatures, which is one of the five strongest on record and leads to a rise in global temperatures on land and at sea.

[ Climate change: ‘How can we feed the world while not damaging it?’ ]

One theory as to why the North Atlantic is heating up is a ban on marine vessel using fuel that contains sulphur, which has a cooling effect on the atmosphere by reflecting sunlight. This ban was introduced in 2020 and has had unintended consequences, but Moore stresses that its impact on temperatures is likely to be small.

The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has issued a warning that the continuing wet weather has left Ireland’s tillage sector at “breaking point” as farmers have been unable to plant their crops.

“Tillage had a horrendous time since last Autumn and incurred big losses in the last harvest,” says IFA president Francie Gorman says. “The ongoing weather conditions have delayed planting and sowing. The situation arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing huge uncertainty in grain markets leaving farmers in a precarious position.”

He is calling on the Government to provide an aid package for farmers who are struggling as a result of the persistently wet weather.

Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue on Tuesday said he had requested that a meeting of the National Fodder and Food Security Committee be held this week in recognition of ongoing and challenging weather conditions.