Risk of flooding across Ireland due to ‘heavy thundery showers’

All areas of the island of Ireland are at risk from flooding in the coming days, while Met Éireann has issued a weather warning for thunderstorm activity on Thursday.

The forecaster issued the status yellow weather warning on Wednesday. It will take effect at 6am on Thursday and remain in place until 7pm.

Met Éireann warned of thundery spells of rain and said there was a risk of lightning and hail, which could lead to localised flooding and hazardous driving conditions.

Met Éireann meteorologist Andrew Doran-Sherlock said there was no part of the country which could be ruled out in terms of the risk of flooding.

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"The warning for tomorrow is for all of Ireland, and the UK has one for Northern Ireland as well," he said. "All areas are at risk of heavy thundery showers. You couldn't categorically rule out any area."

Mr Doran-Sherlock said there already thunderstorms over Northern Ireland generating heavy showers, and that a weather system bringing more unsettled conditions would move across the country overnight.

“There is a band that’s going to bring outbreaks of rain that’s going to move into the southwest and west tonight, and that will extend north-eastwards over the country,” he said.

“There will be quite heavy rainfall and there is a risk of thunderstorms and lightning activity within that. That could generate some spot flooding.

“Following behind that, there are some blustery, heavy, slow-moving thunderstorm showers coming in. There is a risk of hail, lightning and spot flooding from those too.

“With those heavy showers you can get quite high accumulations of water even over a very short period of time, so there is a risk of surface and spot flooding with that.”

Looking further ahead, Mr Doran-Sherlock said the country is facing into “quite a showery regime into Friday and the weekend” during which the risk of thunderstorms will remain.

The UK Met Office has also issued a yellow thunderstorm warning for counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry. The alert will remain in place in Northern Ireland from 1pm until 10pm on Thursday.