RESIDENTS IN MIDLETON have said a “frightening” half hour downpour in east Cork yesterday evening left the town’s main street blocked for several hours.

Youghal and Castlemartyr were also affected by flooding, which one user on IrelandsWeather.com said was like nothing they’d ever seen before, describing it as being like a “monsoon”.

Karl Mehlhorn from IrelandsWeather.com told TheJournal.ie that a downpour like this is caused when a combination of factors. or ‘triggers’ come together to create a thunderstorm.

He said that in the wake of a cold front over Munster yesterday the air became very unstable, and a unique line of showers stretched out from Galway through Limerick to Cork.

Mehlhorn said that he has seen similar showers develop over places like Dublin and Belfast, as well as Cork – which he called “urban heat islands”. He said the heat from the city can cause an unstable air mass to rise and cause a thunderstorm.

He also said that one of the users from his site had just returned from a stormchasing expedition in the US, and after witnessing events in Midleton last night he compared it to what he’d seen on the plains of America.

In Brosnan’s Pharmacy on the main street staff there moved all medication up out of reach of the floodwaters, and told TheJournal.ie this morning that there was a small amount of damage to the premises.

The main street in Midleton was closed for four hours, while AA Roadwatch said that several roads in the area were impassable for a time yesterday evening. A resident told TheJournal.ie that it seemed that the downpour, along with thunder and lightning, continued for up to an hour.

Youghal Mayor Eoin Coyne, who was travelling towards Midleton at the time said that driving through the conditions was “scary”. He said that Youghal escaped the worst of the flooding because the tide was out at the time.

A spokesperson from the Christian Brother’s Secondary School in Midleton told TheJournal.ie said that school was not affected by the flooding and that all students were able to make their way in for the beginning of the Junior and Leaving Certificate exams.

Staff from the Midleton Park Hotel said that the sudden downpour had caused some cosmetic damage but that guests weren’t affected.

According to Twitter user John Hartnett the sweet shop in Midleton also escaped significant damage, although this image shows the extent of the deluge: