Community website for Millstreet, Co. Cork, Ireland
Unfortunately St. Nicholas’ Church in Kilcorney lost part of its roof yesterday during Storm Ophelia, but thankfully no-one was hurt. Today, Pat Sheehan from Kilcorney NS Board of Management was interviewed on RTE Radio 1 by Evelyn O’Rourke about what happened, and what will happen. Listen to the interview from 2:25 in the RTE Podcast below:
Audio Player
[read more …] “Ophelia: Pat Sheehan interviewed about Kilcorney Church”
It has been eerily calm all day. The animals and birds have hardly uttered a sound, like they know something is coming. Ophelia is nearly upon us, and tomorrow morning we’ll wake to the rising storm, possibly the strongest to hit us in over 50 years. If you haven’t tied everything loose down by now, it is probably too late. Above all stay safe and don’t do anything stupid like going out in it or driving. Things can be replaced, people can’t. In town, people have been asking what time the storm will be, well the answer is most of the daylight hours, the worst at lunchtime … below is the best current estimate for tomorrow. The best to everyone. Bíonn grásta Dé idir an diallait agus an talamh. 
Weather Warning: STATUS RED Wind Warning for Galway, Mayo, Clare, Cork and Kerry. Ex-hurricane Ophelia is expected to bring severe winds and stormy conditions on Monday. Mean wind speeds in excess of 80 km/h and gusts in excess of 130km/h are expected, potentially causing structural damage and disruption, with dangerous marine conditions due to high seas and potential flooding. Valid from Monday 16 October 2017 09:00 to Tuesday 17 October 2017 03:00 – from Met Éireann
[read more …] “Weather Warning: STATUS RED – Ex Hurricane Ophelia”
The Sun is shining bright,
there’s a chillness to the air,
I feel it everywhere,
All through the day and night;
Winter is coming!
(Alexander Byron)
After a lovely autumn, the temperatures dropped last night to give us the first real sign of winter with snows on the hills.
Donal stopped at Togher on the road over Mushera this morning to make this snowman.
We knew it was going to be bad yesterday, but few expected it to be that bad. Heavy snow in the morning, made things awkward, but it turned to constant heavy rain at midday which washed away the snow, and the afternoon was just streams of water flowing in every direction. Sure, summer is coming, isn’t it …
Blanket of snow in Ballydaly yesterday morning – photo Geraldine Dennehy
A week ago there was a sudden and unexpected heavy snowfall which blanketed the area, especially Mushera which got a good deep cover. While it’s lovely to look at, hopefully it will be the last one of the year, and that the weather will pick up, after what has been an awful winter. (With thanks to Paul/Noreen O’Connor who took the 30+ photos below at dawn last Sunday in the Mushera / Knocknakilla area).
It has been unseasonably warm this last two months, and our plants are confused. This daffodil from Dooneen is trying to get out before the snowdrops … only three months early! There have been reports from all over of plants flowering way out of season this December. Climate change perhaps, or a seasonal anomaly, who knows. What has been happening though is that ground temperatures have stayed up at 12 Celsius, which is a point where many plants start to grow at, and it might be an explanation of sorts. In the last few days, ground temperatures have fallen back to 7C, so that might put a stop to out of season flowers.
It’s safe to say that we’re pretty sick of all the bad weather at this stage, but with the arrival of Storm Desmond Met Eireann have issued a code red rain warning and a code orange wind warning for South Western counties, from this evening all through Saturday and into Sunday morning.
It might be a little dangerous at times, so we’d all be better off getting out the tiddlywinks and avoiding it if possible. [read more …] “More Wind and Rain for the weekend”
We’re coming to the end of the current dry weather, so to avoid doing things in halves, there’s a Code Orange Weather Warning in effect for tomorrow, with some flooding possible and up to 70mm of rain on higher ground 
From the graphic below, it looks like it will begin raining during the night and get a bit heavier from the late morning on.
All in all, tomorrow won’t be the best day for hanging out the washing!
Speaking of being on the top mountains, the annual Clara Mountain Run is on tomorrow (Sunday) evening at 7pm starting at the West End. The race is open to all, and full race details are on IMRA.ie
Wall to wall sunshine this Bank Holiday Easter Monday for the first of the Eventing Ireland one day events – Cross Country gets underway in Drishane Castle from 1pm! The Welcome tour is on from April 2nd to 12th, taking a break tomorrow April 7th. Full details on millstreethorseshow.ie with updates and more on their facebook page.
Our own Gerladine Dennehy has been taking photos at the show for the last few days. Here are links to the photos from the first few days: Day 4 – Easter Sunday (52 photos); Day 3 – Easter Saturday (38 photos); Day 2 – Good Friday (19 photos); Day 1 – Holy Thursday (20 photos) [read more …] “Easter Monday – Sunshine and Showjumping”
A light cloud cover that moved in overnight blocked most from seeing the partial solar eclipse in Millstreet this morning. While most of us saw nothing other than it geting a little dark, the photo below taken by Jordan at Drishane View shows that it did at least make a brief appearance.
[read more …] “Solar Eclipse Obscured”
Beautiful views on top of Clara Mountain today as a light blanket of snow has covered the mountain and hills around.
Click on Michelle’s photos to see them in full (more photos below)
A rarely seen phenomena was seen in the skies tonight as the moon looked to have a huge ring around it.
Quite beautiful, it’s called a lunar halo and here’s the explanation:
“A lunar halo is caused by the refraction, reflection, and dispersion of light through ice particles suspended within thin, wispy, high altitude cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. As light passes through these hexagon-shaped ice crystals, it is bent at a 22 degree angle, creating a halo 22 degrees in radius (or 44 degrees in diameter).” – from Farmers Alamac
Our photo doesn’t do it justice, so have a look at lots of great photos of Lunar Halos
Due to a status Red and a status Yellow weather alerts for tomorrow, all Boards of Management of primary schools in the area have instructed us to remain closed tomorrow, January 15th. This is in the interest of pupil and public safety. We regret any inconvenience caused.
Millstreet Community School is also closed, as are the preschools: Little Treasures and Curious Minds:
— details —
STATUS RED – Wind Warning for Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Clare, Cork, Kerry and Limerick – Mean speeds in excess of 80 km/h with gusts of 130 to 150km/h possible. The strongest winds will be along exposed coasts and mountainous areas. [info on status red]
We got the best part of six inches of snow last night. Before it melts in the storm this evening, children were busy enjoying the snow before school this morning making snowmen. We love snowmen, so here are a few but send us a photo of yours (to contact @ millstreet.ie) if you’d like it added:
Soccer in the Snow … as you do! Taken by Tom from TMC Photography this evening at the Astro Pitch in Millstreet Town Park (13th Jan 2015)
Today is St. Hilary’s feast day, traditionally the coldest day of the year. So it was not unexpected that we awoke to a blanket of snow in town as well as the hills around us (it’s the second snowy morning this winter). We may get a few more flurries as the day goes on, but it could also be rain :-/.
But please be aware that the forecast for the next few days isn’t great. Tomorrow afternoon until Thursday is going to be very windy and wet too, and after that it will get cold barely getting above freezing during the day, and getting even colder at the weekend. More details below:
[read more …] “A Snowy Morning – wind, rain, and cold to come”
This evening’s sunset and moon pictured from Dromtariffe – by TMC Photography
It was a beautiful sunset, and it seemed like we already have a stretch in the evenings, but in reality we’ve only gained six minutes from the [read more …] “Sunset & Moon from Dromtariffe”
An old local saying about the weather locally:
‘Ceo ar Mhusire’s Clárach lom, an comhartha soininne is fearr ar domhan.’
The photo right is of Musheramore taken from the top of Clara with Clara’s triangulation point in the foreground
The first snows arrived about 6:30 on Thursday morning. There wasn’t much in town, but there was a nice bit on the hills. One of our braver readers made a snowman and took some nice photos in the morning sunshine on his way to work at the top of Togher. Click the images for full size
The first storm of the winter is coming towards us this evening. The winds have started to pick up already, but by tonight the gusts will be very strong. Be careful and tie down anything that could fly … like trampolines 
Put into context, devastating storm of last February had gusts of 65mph around here,so it’s not going to be terrible.
Details on IrishWeatherOnline
Let’s hope our weather forecast for the next week works out 
From 5:10 to 5:25pm yesterday evening (Sunday April 27th 2014) , there was incessant thunder and lightening coming from the Ballydaly/Clara direction. It was really scary for many but out of the thunderstorm appeared a large funnel cloud, which wasn’t far from touching the ground and becoming a tornado. It was captured on camera by a few, and these are shown below. We’d like to hear your experience of the storm, and if you have reports of any damage or more photos if you have them by leaving a comment below, or by email: <email> )
[read more …] “Large Funnel Cloud / Tornado Sweeps past Clara”
In an article in today’s Examiner, stats are given for the rain that fell on us this winter:
– Records were broken during the last three months when 216% more rainfall than average fell at a monitoring station in Millstreet, Co Cork.
– A total of 998.4 mm fell (3ft 3.31) during December, January and February.
– The monitoring station has been in operation there since 1986.
On average we’d get about 1500mm of rain in Millstreet Town every year, and higher still the closer you get to [read more …] “Record Rainfall over Winter”
