Flooding rainfall ‘not extraordinary’

MET ÉIREANN said while the rainfall which preceded November’s devastating floods in Cork could be expected to occur every 25 years it could not be described as “extraordinary”.

But the amount of rain which fell in the Shannon River’s catchment area, it said, was exceptional and should only happen once every 500 years. The country’s weather monitoring experts appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment yesterday and detailed their draft report on last year’s flooding throughout the country.

Liam Keegan, head of its climatology division, brought statistics which he said showed an “extraordinary” amount of rain had fallen in November, on top of three years of heavy rain. He said 79% of its stations reported their highest ever rainfall levels in November.