{"id":622228,"date":"2026-08-05T18:15:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/622228\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T18:15:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:15:17","slug":"july-among-hottest-driest-and-sunniest-months-on-record-met-eireann-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/622228\/","title":{"rendered":"July among \u2018hottest, driest and sunniest months on record\u2019, Met \u00c9ireann says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">The extraordinary nature of last month\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/weather-ireland\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/weather-ireland\/\">weather<\/a> has been confirmed by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/met-eireann\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/met-eireann\/\">Met \u00c9ireann<\/a>, with an analysis showing July was \u201cone of the hottest, driest and sunniest months on record for Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">The impact of the hot and dry spell is becoming more pronounced, with 64 towns, villages and surrounding areas in 12 counties now under night-time water restrictions as lakes and reservoirs deplete. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">While the entire country remains under a hosepipe ban, which prohibits specified uses of water deemed unnecessary until August 26th, areas under night-times restrictions imposed by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/uisce-eireann\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/uisce-eireann\/\">Uisce \u00c9ireann<\/a> have even greater limitations being applied in some places for a full 12 hours from 8pm to 8am.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2026\/07\/24\/nationwide-hosepipe-ban-what-is-allowed-and-who-is-exempt\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nationwide hosepipe ban: What is allowed? Who is exempt?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">The country as a whole received barely one-sixth of its average rainfall for July and some places recorded just over 1mm of rain for the entire month, Met \u00c9ireann said in its climate statement for last month. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">There was 1.1mm of rain recorded at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cork-airport\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cork-airport\/\">Cork Airport<\/a> and Moore Park, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cork\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cork\/\">Co Cork<\/a>, with 1.5mm landing at Oak Park, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/carlow\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/carlow\/\">Co Carlow<\/a>, and Johnstown Castle, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/wexford\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/wexford\/\">Co Wexford<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">All 25 Met \u00c9ireann weather stations recorded lower-than-average rainfall for their regions, with 20 experiencing what is classified as absolute drought. This means that for at least 15 consecutive days, no day had more than 0.2mm of rain \u2013 a barely perceptible amount. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">The remaining five had \u2018partial droughts\u2019, meaning the average rainfall over at least 29 days did not exceed 0.2mm. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">In several parts of the east and southeast, partial droughts were continuing into early this week, passing the 45-day mark. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">It was second-hottest July in 126 years, with almost all areas hotter than average. Heatwave conditions \u2013 five consecutive days with temperatures above 25 degrees \u2013 were officially declared at seven of the 25 weather stations. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">At Moore Park, the heatwave lasted for 13 days, just shy of the all-time record set in Offaly and Laois in 1976. But while the stretch of hot weather was one day behind the 1976 record, the temperatures were far ahead. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">The average temperature 50 years ago, taking day and night into account, was 17.9 degrees while the average at Moore Park last month was 20.4 degrees. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">While temperatures have taken a dip this week and many parts of the country have had some rain, Met \u00c9ireann\u2019s extended range forecast shows the probability of more above-average temperatures and below-average rain throughout the rest of August. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free b-it-article-body__text--left\">Johnstown Castle had 332.4 hours of sunshine last month, during what was the sunniest month there on record. It also provisionally broke the national record for the sunniest month, which had been 308.2 hours recorded at Valentia, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kerry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kerry\/\">Co Kerry<\/a>, in July 1955.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free b-it-article-body__text--left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/phoenix-park\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/phoenix-park\/\">Phoenix Park<\/a> reported 36 consecutive days with maximum daily temperatures above 20 degrees between June 30th and August 3rd, surpassing the previous record of 34 days at Shannon Airport set in July-August 1995. The park\u2019s previous record was 27 days in July 1989. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free b-it-article-body__text--left\">The month\u2019s lowest temperatures were recorded on Friday, July 31st. The lowest air minimum of 5.1 degrees was reported at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/mullingar\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/mullingar\/\">Mullingar<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/westmeath\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/westmeath\/\">Co Westmeath<\/a>, and the lowest grass minimum (0.7 degrees) was reported at Dunsany, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/meath\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/meath\/\">Co Meath<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free b-it-article-body__text--left\">The highest maximum temperature (30.0 degrees) was reported on July 12th at Valentia Observatory in Co Kerry, the station\u2019s highest temperature on record. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free b-it-article-body__text--left\">There was no air or ground frost reported during the month. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free b-it-article-body__text--left\">Seventeen of the 25 weather stations reported their driest July on record, with Cork Airport (1.1mm), Moore Park (1.1mm), Oak Park (1.5mm) and Johnstown Castle (1.5mm) having their driest month on record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The extraordinary nature of last month\u2019s weather has been confirmed by Met \u00c9ireann, with an analysis showing July&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,1845,1877,36563,52,18,13,14,6,19,17,957,11,12,15,16,1873,5602,33076,5,10475,7,8,446,1102,5767,19871,2451],"class_list":["post-622228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-carlow","tag-cork","tag-cork-airport","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kerry","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-meath","tag-met-eireann","tag-mullingar","tag-news","tag-phoenix-park","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-uisce-eireann","tag-weather-events","tag-weather-ireland","tag-westmeath","tag-wexford"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}