Last month was the fourth warmest June on record
The highest temperature recorded was 29.6C in Mount Dillon, Co Roscommon on June 20th, which is also the warmest temperature this year.
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Mean temperatures for the month ranged from 13.7 °C (1.2 °C above its LTA) at Knock Airport, Co Mayo to 15.6 °C (1.7 °C above its LTA) at Phoenix Park, Co Dublin.
The final third of the month has been remarkably hot for Europe, when an intense area of high pressure built over mainland Europe, provoking heatwave conditions to develop over it.
While this happened over mainland Europe, Ireland stayed on the cloudier northern edge of the heat dome, which brought some uncomfortably high nighttime temperatures, contributing to the high June temperatures overall.
All of the warmest June temperatures have been recorded in the last 20 years, with the other warmest June's in 2023, 2018, 2010 and 2006, with 2023 the warmest in history.
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The average temperature last month was 15.10 °C.
It was also the wettest June since 2022, and the 24th wettest since 1941.
Percentage of monthly rainfall values ranged from 56 per cent, the month's lowest monthly rainfall total of 47.0 mm, at Cork Airport, Co Cork to 206 per cent, the month's highest monthly rainfall total of 165.0 mm, at Athenry, Co Galway.
The highest daily rainfall total was 42.6 mm at Casement Aerodrome, Co Dublin on Saturday June 14th.
The number of rain days* ranged from 19 days at both Dublin Airport, and Casement Aerodrome, Co Dublin to 26 days at both Athenry, Co Galway and Claremorris, Co Mayo.
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Greece battles wildfire on Crete for a third day as temperatures rise
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The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
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The contradictions are visible in towns such as Stanford-le-Hope, where Julie lives, which is among the few already represented in parliament by the rightwing populist Reform UK. A YouGov poll last month found just over half of Reform voters wanted a heatwave in the coming weeks. The party, which has promised to scrap the net zero target and 'unlock Britain's vast oil and gas reserves', is projected to win eight of the 10 most flood-prone constituencies at the next general election, according to an analysis in May by the NGO Global Witness and Round Our Way, a campaign group. Far-right parties across mainland Europe have been even more vocal in using the heatwave to take aim at climate policy, even as blazing wildfires force thousands to flee their homes and doctors warn of widespread excess deaths. In Spain, where temperatures reached highs of 46C on Tuesday, the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, mocked a government promise to regulate fear-based advertising by asking if they were also going to 'ban the propaganda of climate religion'. In Italy, which has limited outdoor work during the hottest parts of the day in most of the country, the Lega party MP Claudio Borghi said: 'Climate change has always existed, the causes are anything but clear, and the solutions are contrary to what … is correct.' Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland co-chair Alice Weidel shared a social media post from a climate sceptic that compared the heat on Tuesday to slightly hotter temperatures on the same day in 1952, as the country was 'clearing away the rubble of war'. The post took a swipe at the World Economic Forum, the German public broadcaster and the Green party. The biggest political row over the heat erupted in France, where the National Rally figurehead, Marine Le Pen, called for a 'major' air conditioning plan – one week after the party failed in its parliamentary push to halt new wind and solar projects. In an opinion article in Le Figaro on Thursday, the interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, a conservative, called to stop support for renewable energy and expand France's nuclear energy sector. The proposal earned rebukes from the ecology minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who described it as 'petty politics' that would write Algeria a check for oil, and the former prime minister Gabriel Attal, who called it an 'incomprehensible' misstep. 'As we endure several days of an unprecedented heatwave, we are witnessing a troubling resurgence of anti-science scepticism,' he said. Some far-right parties have focused their attention on old-school climate denial, while others have moved from questioning the science to aggressively campaigning against solutions. 'I don't think the extreme heat is being weaponised, but the efforts to limit it certainly are,' said Ciarán Cuffe, a co-chair of the European Green party and former Irish environment minister. He added that Le Pen's call for more air conditioning – which he said should be one solution among many – may even represent a shift in strategy. 'It's a recognition that these heatwaves are happening, and that they are extreme.' The paradox is that far-right parties bashing green rules are polling well above 20% in several European countries, even though the share of people who deny climate science is typically in single digits. In the UK, pollsters find just 6% of Reform voters list environmental policy as a reason for voting for the party, according to More in Common. That said, the level of threat perception among their voters is much higher than in other parties, said Hodgson. 'They see threats around them and think we need a strong response. So it makes sense for politicians to campaign around those moments.' Climate campaigners have argued that the far right's success in dominating the climate narrative is weakening support for action and providing centrist parties cover to scrap green policies, even if it has failed to create a widespread backlash against green policy. 'The far right has a strategy but everyone else doesn't,' said Luisa Neubauer, a German activist from Fridays for Future, which staged its first night-time protest against climate inaction outside the German economy ministry on Wednesday, as a result of the high heat. Too many people in power or with platforms 'have not yet understood that we're in a war of language – and a war of the truth – about the climate,' she added. 'And too few of us are actively standing in the way of that.'
