In 2013, the Irish media reported that "ongoing climate change will make Ireland wetter over the coming decades". This claim has persisted ever since climate hysteria took root here. I took a sample of seven weather stations from different areas of the country to test the claim. In every single one, 2016 and 2017 had less rainfall than 2015. Only two showed more rainfall in 2017 Vs 2016. The other five showed declining rainfall levels over the past two years.
To further investigate this trend of lower rainfall levels, I checked a completely different source - hydro power. Years with high rainfall should coincide with years that had high hydro power output and vice versa. I obtained hydro power data from SEAI from 2008 to 2016. 2008 and 2009 were high points for hydro that have not been matched since. Since then, hydro power has varied but there is a clear overall decline.
The fall in rainfall during 2016 vs 2015 can also be seen corroborating the above weather stations.
On October 4th, Valentia Observatory recorded it's highest level of rainfall in a single day since the station opened 150 years ago. There was 105.5mm of rain in 24 hours. The same station also recorded it's wettest September in 10 years and December 2015 was the wettest December on record. However, May 2016 was a remarkably dry month,
well below average.
To get the bigger picture to see what is going on, I've taken a look at mean air temperature records.
Previous very wet years were 1924, 1930, 1946, 1947, 2002, 2008 and 2009. Is there a trend of floods and heavy rainfall occurring directly after years of warming ?
The past five years were cooler than the warming peak of the 2000's. We will have to see how 2016 plays out. So far, 2016 is over half a degree warmer than 2015 (up to September). This makes 2016 warmer than any of the last five years but still cooler than the 2000s.
The sea surface temperature maps still show a large body of cool water out in the Atlantic :
Compare with 2006 and 2007 :
A colder Atlantic would normally mean a colder winter in Ireland.
