The past month was the warmest July in over a decade in most of the country, according to Met Éireann.
With temperatures on average 2 degrees higher than normal, a very warm, dry and sunny July continued the pattern of fine weather set in June, Met Éireann reported yesterday in its summary of the month's weather.
It was the warmest July for between 11 and 17 years in most places, and the warmest on record in Clones and Belmullet, where records extend back about 50 years.
Kilkenny enjoyed 28 days during the month where temperatures exceeded 20 degrees, with nine of these days exceeding 25 degrees.
July 19th was the hottest day of the month; a temperature of 31 degrees at Casement Aerodrome in west Dublin was the highest recorded since records began in 1964. In the west, Belmullet recorded a record-breaking 29.9 degrees on the same day. But despite the blistering heatwave, the record of 33.3 degrees set at Kilkenny Castle in June 1887 remains intact.
The month also saw some very low ground temperatures just before the hot spell.
On the 14th, temperatures of minus 1.3 degrees and minus 0.6 degrees were recorded at Birr and Dublin airport respectively, the coldest ever experienced at these stations in July.
Rainfall in the Dublin area since the beginning of June is only 30 per cent of normal, and there was little or no rainfall over eastern and southern areas between July 9th-27th. However, heavy rain on individual days brought rainfall levels above average in some other parts of the country.
The sun shone abundantly everywhere and it was the sunniest July for 16 or 17 years at almost all stations.
Meanwhile, in the UK, July was the hottest month since records began nearly a century ago, according to provisional figures.
