Farmers should prepare themselves to deal with periods of more intense rainfall over the coming years, Met Éireann has warned.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Met Éireann climatologist Paul Moore said adapting to Ireland’s changing climate is going to be a big issue in the future.

“Projections are showing that autumn and winter will continue to get wetter in Ireland. Spring and summer are projected to be similar enough.

“If we keep going to above a 2°C rise in global temperatures then they [spring and summer] are projected to get drier, but until then they will stay similar [to current patterns].

Droughts

“We’re going to have, as projected, more intense rainfall events, but also a likelihood of more droughts in the future as well,” he said.

When comparing the years 1961 to 1990 with 1991 to 2020, the temperature in Ireland increased on average 0.7°C and rainfall increased by 7%.

On a positive note, Moore added that while ground conditions are very wet, there is better drying at this time of year.

“The sun is getting stronger, so when we do get those sunny spells the drying at least will increase,” he said.

On why we are experiencing the current period of prolonged heavy rainfall, Moore said there are two main reasons.

Firstly, the sea temperature in the North Atlantic, where most of our weather comes from, has been at a record high for over a year.

“Higher sea surface temperature means more moisture in the atmosphere and a warmer atmosphere in the system. So when we do get the rainfall events, there is likely to be more moisture,” he said.

Secondly, during March this year and last, there has been a weather phenomenon – known as a breakdown of the stratospheric polar vortex – which causes high rainfall.

Sudden warming

There was a sudden stratospheric warming at the end of February and into the beginning of March in 2023 and 2024.

This leads to above average pressure over colder regions, which displaces the jet stream to the south, sending a low pressure towards Ireland’s southwest from the Atlantic.

“We’ve been plagued by low pressure now for a long time and pushing the jet stream south tends to concentrate the rain in the south, east and midlands of the country rather than the northwest.

“That’s what we’ve seen in March, that the bulk of the rain has been in the midlands, south and east. In the northwest, some weather stations have had below average rainfall and above average sunshine,” Moore said.