Dry, cool March featured period of ‘absolute drought’

One weather station reported a period of “absolute drought” while most others saw below average rainfall during a cool, dry March.

Met Éireann’s monthly weather statistics show nearly half of all stations experienced dry spells between the 9th and 23rd March, with almost all recording below average rainfall for the month.

The Gurteen station in Co Tipperary saw a spell of "absolute drought" between the same dates, which is defined as a period of 15 or more consecutive days where less than 0.2 millimetres of rain fell.

Although no long-term records were broken, the Moore Park station in Fermoy was the country's driest with 47.3mm of rain recorded over the month, just over half of its typical total for March, while Newport in Mayo was the wettest with 142.2mm.

Droughts and dry spells aside conditions were decidedly unremarkable nationwide over the 31-day period, and mean air temperatures were described as being below average across much of the country with some exceptions in the north and west.

The lowest grass temperature recorded was a chilly -9.5 degrees at Oak Park in Carlow, whereas Newport in county Mayo saw values of up to 16 degrees.

The 11th and 18th were the warmest days of the month.

Elsewhere, the Cork Airport station saw the highest number of dull days (days with less than half an hour of sunshine) at 11, whereas Belmullet in Mayo had almost 40 more hours of sunshine than Cork, and Knock saw its sunniest March for six years.

There was just one named storm for Ireland last month, and Storm Jake brought gusts of 133 km/hr to Mace Head in Galway which also registered the highest 10 minute wind speed of anywhere.

The dry spell during March follows a wet, cold and tempestuous winter which saw six named storms visit Ireland over a three-month period.