TO borrow from the old match cliché, January – from a weather viewpoint – was a real month of two halves.

We took a serious pounding of rain through the first half   – the second half was very dry  – and during the interval we got a cold snap for four or five days.

As the middle of the month approached there was a real threat of flood conditions developing with land saturated and rivers swollen.

In the end, January 2023, proved to be a pretty average month in terms of rainfall and temperatures.

The Athenry Met Éireann station recorded 113.9mms (4.5 inches) of rainfall for January – just slightly under the long-term average (LTA) for the month of 116.7mms.

That station recorded a particularly wet four days – January 10 to 13 – when over two-and-a-half inches (66.8mms) of rain fell.

At that point, the very real spectre of flooding had reared its head with rivers bursting their banks in many places; a lot of land waterlogged; and lakes at capacity levels.

However, a cold snap associated with an area of high pressure – that lasted from January 15 to 20 – heralded an extremely dry period of weather that has now carried on through the first weeks of February.

The lowest temperature of the month in Athenry was recorded on Tuesday, January 17, when the mercury dropped to –6°C.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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