{"id":613684,"date":"2026-09-04T00:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T00:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/613684\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T00:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T00:48:15","slug":"ireland-records-hottest-summer-in-127-years-as-heatwaves-and-drought-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/613684\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland records hottest summer in 127 years as heatwaves and drought hit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Summer 2026 was provisionally the hottest <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/maintopics\/weather_topic-5091986.html\">summer<\/a> on record in Ireland in 127 years.<\/p>\n<p>The average temperature for June, July and August was 16.28C, making it 0.09C warmer than the previous record, set in 2025, according to Met \u00c9ireann.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The national forecaster described the summer as \u201cexceptionally warm relative to <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/maintopics\/climate-change_topic-5014070.html\">climatological<\/a> normals\u201d, with temperatures 2.03C above the 1961-1990 average.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Six of Ireland\u2019s 10 hottest summers have now occurred since 2001, highlighting the recent trend towards warmer conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Met \u00c9ireann said high pressure dominated western Europe for much of the summer, while the jet stream was displaced north of Ireland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The jet stream is a band of high-level winds which steers weather systems around the globe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The forecaster said intense high-pressure systems known as heat domes extended north over Ireland on \u201cseveral occasions during the summer months, bringing prolonged periods of hot weather\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Summer 2026 was also the 22nd driest summer since 1941, with several parts of the country experiencing prolonged dry spells and drought conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Drought conditions<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Oak Park in Co Carlow experienced a 66-day partial drought between June 20 and August 24, breaking the previous record of 62 days recorded at Roches Point, Co Cork, in summer 1983.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">All 25 stations monitored by Met \u00c9ireann experienced dry spells between July 1 and August 2, lasting between 19 and 33 days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Twelve stations across the South, East and Midlands recorded absolute drought conditions between July 1 and July 28, lasting between 15 and 27 days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Moore Park in Co Cork recorded its second-longest heatwave on record, lasting 13 days, while it also recorded 23 summer days meeting heatwave criteria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The previous highest number was 15 days, recorded in 2018 and 1989.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Dublin temperature record\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Dublin recorded its highest maximum temperature for August when 31.2C was recorded at Casement on Wednesday, August 12, breaking a record set 62 years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It was also the highest August temperature recorded in the county in 127 years of records.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Phoenix Park reached 30.9C, while Dunsany in Co Meath recorded 30.5C and Gurteen in Co Tipperary reached 29.3C.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Fourteen stations, including three in Cork and three in Dublin, recorded their hottest summer on record.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">August was also warmer and drier than average, with a mean temperature of 16.27C, making it the ninth warmest August on record since 1900.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The warmest August on record was 1995, while the coolest was 1912.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summer 2026 was provisionally the hottest summer on record in Ireland in 127 years. The average temperature for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[2885,246,61,60,82,767],"class_list":["post-613684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613684","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=613684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}