2 weeks Ago By Ben Lowry
The temperature reached an unseasonal 26°Celsius in England , 25°C in Scotland , 24°C in Wales and 23°C in Northern Ireland (Armagh). Across the border it reached 24°C too. These islands were bathed in sunshine.
At a point in the calendar, just before the autumnal equinox, when there is only about 12 hours of daylight, plenty of locations were sunny from almost dawn until dusk. Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Belfast News Letter, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. • Kinloss in Moray, Scotland got 11.
8 hours. • Shap in Cumberland, England 11.1 hours.
• Magilligan in Co Londonderry 10.7 hours. • Anglesey in Wales got 10.
5 hours. Advertisement Advertisement • And in the Republic, Belmullet in the west was sunniest at 11.6 hours.
Even Malin Head in Donegal, typically the part of Ireland most likely to be cloudy, had 11.4 hours! While Thursday the entire British Isles got stunning weather (apart from the Midlands and much of Yorkshire), most of this exceptional spell of weather – which began on Monday – boosted the north and west of the UK more than the south of England. Warm, sunny weather is not only markedly less likely overall in NI than southern England, it is particularly so in September.
The sunniest parts of NI such as the Co Down coast get about 1,400 hours a year, whereas the brightest parts of the UK, like Eastbourne, are closer to 1,900 hours. That is a third more per year, about 500 hours annually, almost 1.5 hours extra a day on average.
England is hardly known for good weather but that is a lot more sun than we enjoy in Ulster. It is also noticeably warmer: London has an average September maximum of 20C, NI has an average high of 17C. Autumn typically comes quickly to this part of the world, so that it is cooler for example than it is here in June, on the other side of the summer.
Advertisement Advertisement But this week the north of the UK won out. On Monday NI reached 21.8C in Derrylin, Fermanagh (which was 0.
1C behind the hottest place in Britain, North Yorkshire). On Tuesday it reached a hot 23.7°C in Magilligan, on Wednesday 22.
5°C at the Giant’s Causeway, and then Thursday a still warm 22.7°C. All four days were overwhelmingly sunny after cloud in places on Monday morning.
On Tuesday we spoke to a couple from Paris and Rome who were enjoying their first visit to Belfast, in temperatures as good as or hotter than their home cities. This follows an even more exceptional two-day burst of summer weather earlier in the month, on Friday September 6 and Saturday September 7, when it was 27.2°C and 25.
9°C, hotter than Barcelona that weekend. The Friday was the hottest day of the year in NI, which rarely falls on a September day. Having said that, last year saw the hottest ever September day in the province: a sweltering 28.
0°C at Castlederg on the 8th of that month. This author has been monitoring, and occasionally writing about, the Northern Ireland weather all summer and is not aware of any four-day spell of sunshine and warmth in either July or August that was on a par with the burst we had this week. If readers can think of one, please let us know by emailing [email protected] Yesterday the climate returned much closer to the norm for the year, of a mixture of cloud and sun and temperatures in the high teens, as the weather is expected to be today and tomorrow.
.
