Surprised? July 2024 was actually not that wet in Northern Ireland says the Met Office

The Met Office has given a breakdown of the Province's weather during the month, showing that it was actually slightly less rainy than the 30-year average – and way less rainy than last year.

It was also slightly cooler and less sunny than usual.

During July across the whole of Northern Ireland, there was 77mm of rain – 86% of the average.

However, it varied a lot depending where you were:

Co Down got 102% of July's average rain

Co Fermanagh: 96%

Tyrone: 85%

Londonderry: 82%

Armagh: 79%

Antrim: 77%

By contrast, in July 2023 Northern Ireland got 182mm of rain – or 204% of the average.

This July was also 0.6C colder than normal (compared with 0.3C below average in 2023) and had 22% fewer hours of sun than average (compared with 24% below average in 2023).

Oliver Claydon of the Met Office said some people may find it "surprising" the figures are not worse.

"While statistics give the numbers, perception can obviously be driven by the situation on the ground," he said.

"With a very wet autumn, winter and spring people will have had enough of the rain and some sectors such as farming have been impacted by this for several months.

"Any rain through the summer could obviously then bring further unwanted impacts at an important time of year.

"It’s probably drier statistically than it felt.”

Much of the rainfall in July was “front-loaded”, meaning it fell in the start of the month then softened off.

He also said the way things are shaping up though, August looks wetter than normal.

By this stage, an average of 13% of August's rain has typically fallen.

But Fermanagh has already had 32% of the monthly average, whilst Tyrone and Londonderry have had 26%, Antrim 19%, and Armagh and Down 10%.

Overall, the general direction of travel thanks to climate change is for the UK to have “warmer and wetter winters” and “hotter and drier summers” said the Met Office, along with “more frequent and intense weather extremes”.