Dublin Airport wettest February on record

0:00But in the meantime, Dublin Airport had its wettest February on record last month. According to Matt Aaron, it experienced 255 percent of its normal February rainfall. In all, February 2026 was the 19th wettest here, recording 119 percent of its normal rainfall. For more, we're joined by climatologist with Matt Aaron Paul Moore. Paul, just how wet was February? Yeah, good afternoon, Rachel. And yes, so overall Ireland, we can see it's a lovely day today, but most will remember how dull and wet February was, especially in the east of the country. So 190 percent of the long-term average for the country, but there's a lot of regional variation in that. The east, especially, got had a very wet month with Dublin Airport, as you say, having its wettest February on record. And Phoenix Park and Dunsany and Mead, having their second wettest February on record. Now, it has been milder than average, mostly because I guess it's been cloudy,

1:02and the night times didn't really get that cold. So overall, it was 7.21 degrees Celsius and main temperature for the country, which is the 13th, mildest February on record. And what happened then in the west during the month? Was it drier than usual? Yes, in a good few stations in the west and northwest, it was slightly drier than usual and a little bit drier in some places. That's because the jet stream was displaced to the south during second half of January, first two turns of February, where the low pressures were coming in to the south of Ireland, installing over just to the south of Ireland and sending the wetter fronts up from the south and affecting the east and south of the country, especially where as the northwest was closer to the high pressure to the north and it escaped with low average rainfall. Now, we've been told for a number of years now that climate change is likely to make our weather wetter and warmer, so is that what we've been seeing over the past few weeks?

2:04Yes, we've seen our winters are wetter than they were in the past, because the warmer climate can hold more moisture. So when we do get stuck in these patterns where you get repeated wetter fronts each system now will grow up more rainfall than it did in pre-industrial climate, because the atmosphere can hold that much more moisture now than it did in the past. It's been a bit of a shock to the system over the past couple of days, albeit a very pleasant one to be able to go out without an umbrella or an anirac. What's the story for the coming days as far as you're aware? Yeah, that's a lovely day today. In most places, the jet stream has moved to its more normal position a bit further north, so we're getting more of a westerly air flow in off the Atlantic with ridges of high pressure in between as of today, and they were expecting more rain coming Wednesday night Thursday, but then another rich high pressure seems to be coming in on Friday, Saturday, so in some places we might get a couple of dry days for that.

3:06How will we cope at all? Paul, thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. Paul Moore, there, who's a climatologist with Metaera,