A sight we got used to last year in the summer months. Photo by Dermot Crean.
VALENTIA observatory recorded an increase in sunshine which made the south west the sunniest place to be last summer.
In a report released by Met Eireann, Valentia recorded a 118% increase in average sunshine levels with the observatory measuring just under 1,500 hours of sunshine.
The hottest day of the year was Friday, July 25, with a maximum temperature 26 degrees.
In June, Valentia Observatory recorded its sunniest month in 74 years with 265 hours of sunshine.
It wasn’t all BBQs and trips to the beach though, even with the very good summer it was still the wettest year on record at Valentia.
848mm of rain was recorded which translates as a whopping 183% increase on the yearly average. The wettest month was February with 292.4 millimetres of rainfall.
July was the warmest month with an average temperature of 16.3 degrees. Because of the beautiful Indian summer we enjoyed last year, September clocks in as the second warmest month with an average of 15.6 degrees.
The average temperature over the whole year was 11.3 degrees. 2014 was a year of extremes with it being the wettest and one of the sunniest ever recorded for this area.
Let’s hope for 2015 we can just have more of the latter.
The weather looks bad for tomorrow by the way.
