Ireland’s highest wind gust recorded during Storm Ophelia

The country had its highest wind gust on record during Storm Ophelia, according to Met Eireann’s latest weather summaries.

Roches Point, Co Cork recorded a gust of 155.6km/h on October 16th as well as the highest 10-minute mean speed on record of 114.8 km/h.

Met Éireann said this autumn was characterised by “unsettled weather” mainly due to Storm Ophelia, which claimed three lives.

“Storm Ophelia developed near the Azores late on the second week [OF OCTOBER] before tracking rapidly north-eastwards with hurricane force winds,” the autumn summary states.

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The storm made landfall as an “extra-tropical cyclone” and produced violent storm force winds in Munster, strong gale force winds in many areas and destructive gusts widely, Met Éireann said.

Storm Brian affected the country to a lesser extent later on Saturday, October 21st.

Gales and strong gales were reported at “many stations” on October 16th and October 21st. Violent storm force winds were also reported on October 16th at Roches Point and Sherkin Island, Co Cork.

Dublin Airport had its wettest autumn day since 2011 last month. The weather station recorded 52mm of rain on November 22nd, the wettest day over the last three months.

Nearly all rainfall totals were above average for the season with around half of stations experiencing their wettest autumn conditions in six years.

Roches Point and Gurteen, Co Tipperary reported their wettest autumn in eight years. The number of wet days for autumn was up to 72 days at Newport while the number of very wet days was up to 17, also at the Co Mayo town.

Mean temperatures for the three months were slightly above average with the highest temperature reported at Oak Park, Co Carlow on September 3rd with 23.4 degrees. Autumn’s lowest temperature was -3.5 degrees at Moore Park, Co Cork and Mullingar, Co Westmeath.

The highest number of daily sunshine hours recorded this autumn was 12.3 hours at Valentia Observatory on September 1st.

November was generally “cool and unsettled with few if any lengthy dry spells”. Almost two-thirds of monthly rainfall totals were below their long-term average.

“A ridge of high pressure brought a mainly dry start to the first week with some of the higher temperatures, but the south-westerly Atlantic regime dominated the weather for much of the rest of the month,” the weather summary for November states.

The highest temperature recorded for the month was 16.6 degrees at Newport on the 1st.

The number of dull days during November ranged from 10 days at both Dublin Airport and Cork Airport to 17 days at Belmullet, Co Mayo.

Both the month’s highest wind gust of 111.1km/h and highest 10-minute wind speed of 83.3km/h were reported at Malin Head, Co Donegal on the 12th.