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Updated at 6.14pm
CHRISTMAS MAY BE over, but that isn’t going to stop the snow.
Five (count ‘em) weather warnings have been issued for the country — with a veritable smorgasbord of rain, wind, ice, sleet, snow and heaven-knows-what-else set to hit the country over the next 24 to 36 hours.
Clare weather warning
This evening, Clare Co Council issued a weather warning, saying that Met Éireann has warned that a severe storm will affect western fringe counties, including Clare, from midday tomorrow until mid-morning on Thursday.
It warns that wind gusts of up to 130km/hr can be expected, as well as “significant” rainfall.
“While the entire county will be affected, the most extreme impacts are likely to be along the coastline. The advice is not to venture out or to drive on exposed roads while these conditions prevail,” said the Council.
Snow on the ground
The snow’s already been falling in some areas.
This was the scene in Co Donegal first thing this morning, where the white stuff was already “thick on the ground”.
The deal with these five warnings?
To put it simply, the more severe ones apply to the west of the country generally while less serious ‘yellow’ alerts apply elsewhere.
In (ascending) order of seriousness…
There’s a yellow snow-ice warning for Leinster, Cork, Tipperary and Waterford. It applies until 9am tomorrow.
What does that mean?
“Wintry showers of hail, sleet and snow today and overnight with snow accumulations of up to 4 cm in places. The highest amounts will on high ground and further west.”
There’s a yellow rainfall warning for Connacht, Donegal, Clare, Cork, Kerry and Limerick, applying from 11pm tonight until 11pm tomorrow.
In other words…
“Heavy showers on Tuesday night will be followed by heavy rain on Wednesday afternoon and evening. The rain will start to clear early on Wednesday night. Rainfall totals of 25 to 35 mm are expected.”
There’s a yellow wind warning in place for Dublin, Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Wicklow, Offaly, Westmeath, Meath, Cavan, Monaghan, Roscommon and Tipperary. It applies from midday tomorrow until midday on Thursday.
In short….
“Southerly winds of mean speeds of 50 to 65 km/h with gusts of 90 to 110 km/h will develop on Wednesday afternoon and will continue through the night, when they will veer west to southwest. Winds will start to ease off later on Thursday morning.”
There’s an orange wind warning in place for Wexford, Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Waterford. Again, that’s from noon tomorrow for the following 24 hours.
Again, from Met Éireann…
Southerly winds of mean speeds of 65 to 80 km/h with gusts of 110 to 130 km/h will develop on Wednesday afternoon and will continue through the night, when they will veer west to southwest. Strongest winds will be along the coast. Winds will start to ease off later on Thursday morning.
And there’s an orange snow-ice warning in effect for Connacht, Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal, Clare, Kerry and Limerick. It was issued at 5am and applies until 9am tomorrow.
Wintry, thundery showers of hail, sleet and snow today and overnight with snow accumulations of 4 to 8 cm. The highest amounts will be on high ground in Connacht and west Ulster.
Motorists are being urged to take extra care, particularly on untreated surfaces. Problems are being reported on a number of routes around the country.
Look out for your neighbours
ALONE is urging older people to take caution during the bad weather, and is urging members of the public to check in on their neighbours.
Seán Moynihan, CEO of ALONE said: We’re advising older people to stay warm in the cold weather by ensuring they have adequate home heating, wearing layers of light but warm clothing, eating at least one hot meal a day and staying indoors if possible.”
The damaging effects of cold weather are not always seen straight away, a variety of health problems can arise afterwards. A visit from a member of the public to check on an older person’s heating levels, food supplies and security, as well as to simply offer some human contact can make a huge difference.
If you have concerns for an older person, or are an older person in need of assistance, you can contact ALONE on 01 679 1032.
Includes reporting from Cliodhna Russell and Aoife Barry
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Please god don’t let the dubs get hit.
Fair play Alan. Thanks
You do understand the logistics of hundreds of thousands of people trying to get home to or into work when the roads are covered in snow and ice? Maybe you could attach a plough to your tractor, come up to Dublin and dig us out?
I think his point is we get on with it in the west. A light covering of snow, no big deal. Take it easy. Once it hits Dublin everyone (media especially) panics and we have to put up with reruns of a lad falling on the sidewalk on the RTE news for the next 5 years. Get over it.
It’s one thing trying to pick your lonely way home along a boreen, quite another dealing with half a million other people in cars inching along or skidding into each other, and overcrowded buses turning back for the depot when when you’re half way home. The issue with Dublin and snow isn’t just the innate wimpiness of Dubs, it’s the complete inability of the transport infrastructure to cope, leaving 2 million people up the Swanee.
John, while you’re heroically getting through the your day and not letting the weather get to you down the country, has it ever occurred to you that a lot of the logistical stuff that still works (or gets fixed quickly) like electricity, phone, food distribution to your nearest shop, emergency services despatch, postal dele cowries are kept going by (in part) staff in big buildings in Dublin who need to get to work to do that?
*postal deliveries
Neal – us country bumpkins “down the country” also use electricity, phones, get our food from shops, require emergency services etc. In fact, I’d argue that it inconveniences us simple rural folk that bit more because with less people giving out about lost services, we’re left at the bottom of the list to reconnect, the road network is less likely to be treated and more likely to be inaccessible to emergency services and because not everyone is a farmer we also have to travel to work via these untreated/inaccessible roads.
John has his own potters kiln with which he generates electricity, he’s grand.
Actual grown adult men.
Neal I don’t live down a boreen and it is just another city folk sterotype that we all do. Also I live “acrosss” from Dublin not down or under it. Would you believe I even travel on some dual carriage way to work and even have to stop at traffic lights….amazing isn’t it
For gods sake don’t mention Dig outs!
Ya John right lot of whinge bah’s. Wouldent know what hardship really is.
Snow falling in Killeshandra county Cavan.Playing hide and seek with the sheep is getting very difficult now.The round bales look like pints of guinness on a tray. ( I really need to get out more)
In pub now having a round bale or two…guy beside me is having a dogs piss in the snow by the looks of things…
Do you often play hide and seek with sheep?
wear 501s button fly the noise of a zip opening tends to frighten the sheep!
Cork city getting hammered with snow
The cost of being able to ‘not grind to a halt over a few flakes’ is not worth spending in Ireland, we don’t get snow often enough to justify it. If every 2-3 years we get ‘snowed in’ by a 1/4 inch of snow, so be it.
How did we ever survive without the weather alerts from Met Eireann? Ohh yeah…. We looked out the window.
There’s a Yellow Snow Warning in operation for the Kenagh area of Co. Longford, around the National Animal Refuge Centre…
” never eat the yellow snow ” – yellow snow warning.
These Met Éireann colour-coded warnings are pointless and annoying. They are far too vague and use far too many colours!
15.50hrs: It is officially snowing in Dublin. Let the nationwide panic begin!
The snow doesn’t matter at all until it reaches the Pail
Dont forget this is all from global WARMING
So long as it’s not in Dublin it really doesn’t matter. The engine of the country will still power ahead. Yellow warning in snow in Cork equals Psssss
We’ll see how the “engine” grinds to a halt if it see’s so much of a flake of snow
Does the ” b ” stand for Ballbag Alan ?
Don’t be silly the powerhouse of the country will always support the rest, even if the majority are in denial. Typical country irish, they don’t like the truth.
No Keith it’s Boss.isn’t that what you dubs call culchies at work?
Sorry mike thought you meant dublin.
Bitter…….Betty
No Mike is right the ‘B’ stands for Bitter , because he had to go to Dublin to get a job and make a living
Hahaha the “powerhouse” of the country is only running on the amount of smug produced by the likes of Mike here. Typical Dub with a grossly over inflated sense of self importance
How old are you? Stop being so stupid.
This thread is just missing a couple of cluchie sheep shagging comments.
Alan do you have to drive home from Dublin every weekend…. hate that !
Deniable Copulabilty!
Brilliant!
C’mon snow give it your best
What’s with all of the weird tribal talk in these comments? it’s a bit of snow for feck sake.
At each others throats over the colour of weather warnings in different parts of the country.
Cabbages.
9 inches in Kerry last night.
Katona?
Where in Kerry certainly not in Tralee or castlemaine
@Siobhán: I think you might be a little bit innocent..
Oooh is like to see that… Been a while since I saw 9 inches….. Of snow of course
Ha ha brilliant!!
Kerry Katona??? lol.
Oh for gods sake, grow up, bunch of kids arguing over who the snow affects most. It stands to reason the more commuters there are the bigger the chaos will be. I thought we are one country, why are you so petty.
Ah it’s not snowing in Sandra’s place either
Dublin This, Dublin That, no original thoughts in your heads lads?
No Paulie they don’t , they have to come to Dublin for that aswell
Got our 3 minutes of snow in Galway there. Was nice while it lasted, blue sky now, snow already melted
It’d be typical of Ireland to grind to a halt over a few flakes. Throw on a hat and gloves and plough on regardless
Eskimos issue orange snow warnings all the time. It’s the first thing they teach their kids – “Don’t eat the orange snow”
You’re thinking of Oompa Lompas.
It never ever snows in Limerick. All we get is a kind of a cold miserable rain
You’d never find your knife if you dropped it in the snow
Can we take the yellow snow/pi$$ joke as read?
I can visualise them all in there offices in met eireann with their colouring pencils n markers drawing for all it was worth
These colour codes for weather warnings are a real pain. Totally americanised for dramatisation purposes.
Your mood must be constantly in a state of flashing amber if this fairly innocuous way of classifying severity offends you!
Ha, It is!
I had to travel that tubbercurry road to sligo this morning, had to turn back before Achonry because cars were just stuck everywhere.. all clear now so its grand
We’re going to need another fall/ slippy guy.
Must dig out the twin hats! !
Jees look out ! There’s weather coming !
Ah for F’s sakes, we’ve gone from no weather warnings ever to 5 a day if there’s a shower or a nip in the air….. If they were in the US or any number of places with variable winter weather they’d be up to 257 warnings a day at their rate of nonsensical siren blaring and horse ****
- Would they ever go off and occupy themselves, maybe download some new wallpaper or do some actual work or something?
Concentrate all our anti snow resources on dublin where it can save the most people/ keep my bus running
its the most sensible thing to do
3 pints of Guinness and 3 packets of peanuts. I’m going to issue a RED wind warning!
Seriously? Are people actually having a pissing contest about which part of Ireland gets the worst weather? BAHAHA
Ah Elaine it must not be snowing in your neck of the woods. Feel for you there
No it’s not…and I’m kinda jealous :-(
Nothing much in my part of Kerry shower or 2 this morning! Be grand!!!
Southerly winds and snow?!?!?
Saudi Arabia
Saudi cleric issues fatwa on snowmen
Religious leader forbids building of anti-Islamic idols that might resemble human beings, after winter storm in north of country
The building of snowmen has been forbidden by a top Saudi
A prominent Saudi Arabian cleric has whipped up controversy by issuing a religious edict forbidding the building of snowmen, describing them as anti-Islamic.
Asked on a religious website if it was permissible for fathers to build snowmen for their children after a snowstorm in the country’s north, Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid replied: “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.”
Quoting from Muslim scholars, Munajjid argued that to build a snowman was to create an image of a human being, an action considered sinful under the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Sunni Islam.
“God has given people space to make whatever they want which does not have a soul, including trees, ships, fruits, buildings and so on,” he wrote.
No doubt we will have the usual bunch of idiot’s driving to close to fast for the road conditions using the m/b while driving going through red lights won’t be a Garda in sight.
Yeah no doubt everything will be terrible.
We’re turning into wimps with all these weather warnings.
On the plus side when their cutting you out of your car you wont be accused of being wimpy.
It’s winter…..a high temperature warning – now that’d be news!
Blah blah blah.
A yellow snow warning, you say? Me ma warned me years ago to never eat yellow snow
We are getting worse than USA for ridiculous weather warnings.
Lot’s of snow here in Cork all day and windy,loving it:)
That “Yellow Snow warning” is very worrying. Never go near yellow snow..
Yellow snow warning – Fnarrr Fnarrr. I’ll get my coat.
I thought yellow snow was bad.
A neighbor of mine got married in Sweden @xmas I asked her did they get any Snow. She said No but got 9″ on honeymoon in Finland
“Yellow snow and ice warning”
Yep never ever eat it!
Dublin ?
Hahahaha “yellow snow ice warning”.thats funny
If it freezes then that will be fun…
have your say