{"id":608537,"date":"2026-08-29T19:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T19:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/608537\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T19:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T19:04:13","slug":"met-eireann-to-be-asked-why-no-kerry-warning-was-issued-before-killarney-flash-floods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/608537\/","title":{"rendered":"Met \u00c9ireann to be asked why no Kerry warning was issued before Killarney flash floods"},"content":{"rendered":"

Met \u00c9ireann is to be asked to explain why it didn\u2019t provide any weather warnings for Kerry ahead of \u201cbiblical\u201d flash floods<\/a> that tore through Killarney.<\/p>\n

A red weather warning event happens when at least 50mm of rain falls over a six-hour period, but it is understood that Killarney was hit with 57mm in just four hours.<\/p>\n

Mayor of Killarney John O\u2019Donoghue said the town somehow \u201cdodged a bullet\u201d\u200b because everyone \u201crallied around\u201d to deal with the aftermath of the flash floods.<\/p>\n

He also praised Kerry County Council staff for taking quick measures to ease the impact on businesses and property owners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened was biblical and unprecedented,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would hope, as a result of this, Met Eireann will look at their forecasting and prediction models and see how they can be improved.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Killarney Municipal District councillor Maura Healy-Rae said: \u201cMet Eireann needs to explain why they didn\u2019t have any idea what was going to happen in Killarney.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also need to know how to make sure this doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The flooding was so bad that whole sections of the town were submerged in water for a brief period.<\/p>\n

The worst hit were properties on Park Rd, College Stt, Countess Rd, and Bypass Rd.<\/p>\n

A number of homes and businesses were damaged over the four-hour deluge.<\/p>\n

Pat O\u2019Connor, who owns Variety Sounds on College St, said: \u201cMet Eireann has a lot to answer for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have too much mass in them anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would much prefer a false alarm than no alarm.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His instrument shop suffered carpet damage, but because a member of staff was still in the shop at the time of the floods, they were able to stem the flow of water.<\/p>\n

Shahzad Rashid and his colleagues across the road were not so lucky at the Bombay Palace restaurant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am still shocked at what happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"ShahzadShahzad Rashid was working when a ‘river’ rushed through his College St restaurant in Killarney. Picture: Neil Michael<\/p>\n

\u201cSome customers were standing at the door waiting for the rain to stop when all of a sudden a river of about one-foot-high water shot into the restaurant.<\/p>\n

\u201cCustomers and staff were soaked.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter we said goodbye to our customers, who were all given drinks on the house, we had to rip up the carpets and get expert cleaners in to sort out the damage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said they worked overnight and industrial dehumidifiers were still in operation 30 minutes before \u200bt\u200bhe restaurant opened \u200bi\u200bts doors at 5pm on Friday.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lisa Wiltsey, co-owner of Lily Designs jewellery shop, said her premises sustained very little damage, but the force of the rain pouring onto the roof managed to smash through ceiling tiles in a back storage room.<\/p>\n

\u200b”It was chaos,” she said.<\/p>\n

While Met \u00c9ireann issued various Status Orange rain warnings for counties Carlow, Cork, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, and Waterford, none was issued for Kerry.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Kerry County Council told the Irish Examiner: \u201cKerry County Council was not in receipt of any warnings from Met \u00c9ireann on Thursday, nor was County Kerry the subject of any weather warning from Met \u00c9ireann.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kerry County Council director of services Paul Neary told RT\u00c9 that an estimated 57mm of rain fell in a four-hour period, with around 30mm falling in just one hour alone.<\/p>\n

He said that drainage systems had, as a result, been \u201coverwhelmed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"LisaLisa Wiltsey, co-owner of Lily Designs, on Killarney’s College St. Picture: Neil Michael<\/p>\n

Met Eireann, when asked why it hadn\u2019t issued any warnings for Kerry, said: \u201cRain affected many parts of the country on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMet \u00c9ireann issued yellow level rainfall warnings for counties in the south and southeast on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs additional model guidance arrived, it indicated the risk of heavy rain was likely to shift northwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cMet \u00c9ireann then issued yellow level rainfall warnings for Dublin and Kildare at 20:47 on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the rainfall was being monitored, the risk of heavier rainfall in the Dublin area became even more likely, and the yellow warning was elevated to orange for Dublin overnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rain had pockets of highly localised intense downpours which resulted in some surface flooding in parts of Munster and Leinster.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Met \u00c9ireann is to be asked to explain why it didn\u2019t provide any weather warnings for Kerry ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[187201,42959,61,60,43,767],"class_list":["post-608537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-kerry-news","tag-flooding","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}