Hurricane Gert on its way as rainfall warning issued for west

It never rains but it pours in August. Heavy rain over the next 24 hours will be followed by the remnants of Hurricane Gert now crossing the Atlantic.

Rainfall warnings have been issued by Met Éireann for the counties of Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo and Sligo as a low pressure area passes by Atlantic coasts.

Between 30 and 40mms of rain (more than an inch of rain) is expected between Thursday and Friday evening. This will bring with it the possibility of spot flooding in places.

This will be followed by Hurricane Gert which is expected to track between Ireland and Iceland on Sunday and Monday.

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It made its way north from the Caribbean, but did not make landfall in the United States, instead tracking the eastern seaboard before heading north-east where it has turned into an Atlantic depression.

Met Éireann forecaster Deirdre Lowe said it could bring more heavy rain and strong winds to the western half of the country, but, by its nature, it is hard to say with certainty what will happen.

In any case both Sunday and Monday are forecast wet and windy across the country.

August has already been an exceptionally wet month on the east coast. Some 40 mms of rain fell in Dublin on Monday, more than half the average for the month in the city.

The good news is that there are tentative signs of a change in the weather next week with the possibility of a settled spell.

Ms Lowe said: "There is high pressure north of the Azores that possibly could come up next week, but once an ex-hurricane gets into the model, it sometimes disrupts it a bit."