Met Office reveals extent of Northern Ireland's unusually-dry run of weather - though rain is on its way
The Met Office has said that the past six weeks for Northern Ireland have been notably drier than expected – though a band of heavy rain is on the way.
The forecasting agency provided figures to the News Letter showing that only about half the typical amount of rain has fallen so far this August, following on from a seriously dry July.
Forecaster Niamh Murray said that the average rainfall during August to date in Northern Ireland is 28mm, which is only 28% of the usual monthly total.
By this stage it should be around 40% to 50% of the monthly total she added, so the reading is “quite unexpected” and “uncommon”.
July had seen an average of 26.9mm of rain fall in Northern Ireland, which is a mere 30% of what would normally be expected (although June had been unusually-wet at 135.6mm, which was 167% of the typical monthly total).
She also revealed that Northern Ireland’s heatwave-like conditions during the week were brought to an abrupt halt today.
The top temperatures recorded for the day were 21.9C at Killowen in Co Down (at 11am), 21.5C at Murlough in Co Down (at 11.35am), and 20.6C at Armagh (at 2.46pm).
On Thursday the Province’s top temperature had been 26.9C at Helen’s Bay in Co Down, on Wednesday it had been 27.5C at Armagh, and on Tuesday it had been 25.3C at Derrylin in Co Fermanagh.
A heatwave is three straight days when temperatures reach 25C or above.
However Miss Murray told the News Letter that, technically speaking, Northern Ireland cannot say it had a heatwave because no individual weather station had a three-day run of 25C-plus temperatures.
As to what the days ahead hold, she said tomorrow will be relatively dry with bright sunny spells, Sunday will bring light rain or showers, but Monday, while being quite dry to start, will see “a band of potentially rather heavy rain coming across Northern Ireland” in the afternoon, before giving way to a showery Tuesday.
In Great Britain the situation is even more pronounced following weeks of drought conditions in parts of the south.
New Prime Minister Andy Burnham has revealed he plans to commission firefighting planes, as used in Europe and the US, to combat the spread of wildfires.
He said the country has to “face up” to the “changing climate” and needs to transition to “more clean energy”.
Mr Burnham said plans were being drawn up for emergency financial support for fire services battling the spread of wildfires.
Mr Burnham told broadcasters today: “I’ve never seen scenes like this in Britain, where you just see a whole house gutted, smouldering.”
The Prime Minister said 100 military personnel had been deployed to a blaze in south Wales to offer “critically needed” support.
He said “Britain is a tinderbox right now” with “37 fires smouldering around the country”.
A ban on disposable barbecues kicked in on Friday, but it only applies to GB, not to Northern Ireland.
Mr Burnham is also facing renewed pressure from environmental activists not to approve new drilling in the North Sea, since CO2 produced by the fuel will add to climate change.