There weren’t many showers to talk about this April as much of Ireland saw less than 75% of normal rainfall in the month. In parts of England and Wales only half the normal rainfall happened this month.
Dry Aprils are becoming more of a recurrent theme of recent years, and this year there is talk of drought in some parts of the Uk after the dry month this year. The final day of the month has brought some much needed moisture to the land, even if it felt like a return to winter for some after the beautiful sunshine of recent weeks.
A stubborn anticyclone squatting over the country has prevented the normal south westerly breezes that bring relatively warm and wet weather this time of year. In its place we’ve had dry chilly weather and a slowish spring to boot.
We await the full meteorological stats that come in after the month has ended to get the full weather picture. See below: Met Eireann report for the Month of April April was a relatively dry month with high pressure, centred mostly to the north of Ireland, in control.
The beginning of the first week saw bands of mostly light rain or showers crossing the country from the northwest, as they circled around an area of high pressure to the west of Ireland.
The centre of a relatively deep area of low-pressure moved close to the north of the country at the end of the first week, bringing further rain or showers, along with the windiest period of the month.
A cooler air mass at the beginning of the second week brought drier conditions with widespread frost at night.
A low-pressure system to the west of Ireland, named storm Evelyn by the Portuguese met service, brought a milder airflow, along with bands of rain or showers from the southwest between the 10th and 12th. Further frontal rain or showers pushed in from the west towards the end of the second week and beginning of the third week, but amounts stayed relatively low.
On Sunday 17th, an active cold front gave widespread and prolonged falls of rain as it pushed slowly across the country from the west. For the remainder of the month, high pressure to the north dominated, bringing an easterly airflow with mostly dry conditions.
It was cool at times, especially in the East, but there were also several warm and sunny days, especially in the West and Northwest. The final day of the month saw a shallow area of low-pressure bringing widespread frontal rain down from the northwest.
Rainfall: Below average in most places, driest in the East Nearly all rainfall totals were below their 1981-2010 Long-Term Average (LTA) for the month.
Sunshine: Sunniest in the Northwest All available sunshine totals were above their Long-Term Average (LTA).
Wind: Strong gales reported The number of days with gales ranged from zero days at a few stations to 4 days at Malin Head, Co Donegal. The number of days with strong gales ranged from zero at most stations to 1 day at Mace Head, Co Galway.