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THE COUNTRY IS still suffering the legacy of last winter’s storms and floods with homes, businesses and infrastructure trying to recover their losses.
Insurance companies processed millions of euro worth of claims and around 50,000 households can’t afford or are not covered by house insurance because they live in flood-prone areas – a situation so dire that the-then Environment Minister Phil Hogan mooted a one per cent insurance levy in March of this year to pay for repairs.
To cap the sense that late 2013/early 2014 featured some of the worst weather in years, Irish climatologists have now officially recognised that period as “the stormiest in 143 years”.
Researchers at NUI Maynooth’s Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units (ICARUS) worked with Loughborough University in the UK to conclude that the type of storms we saw in winter 2013/2014 are unmatched in long-running climatological records that go back for Ireland to the winter of 1871/1872.
That is not to say that last winter had the most storms in those years – the first winter of World War I, 1914/15, might hold that record – but the datasets show that the storms of this past winter had the worst combination of frequency and intensity on record.
There were some warning signs even last summer. Remember this July storm? (Clerys iconic store in Dublin shut for months because of it):
The seemingly endless parade of gales, downpours and resulting floods continued beyond the New Year:
Few, if any, places in Ireland escaped:
The southwest coast really took the brunt early on:
Parts of Limerick city were devastated:
It will certain live on in popular memory:
Dr Tom Matthews, lecturer in Geography at NUI Maynooth, said that understanding the severity of the storms was vital as “such destructive weather events are of tremendous societal significance”.
The weather was affected by the formation of cyclones over the North Atlantic Ocean, and they travelled east towards Ireland and the UK. Shaun Harrigan of ICARUS said:
The work increases confidence in the use of long term datasets employed for understanding patterns of storminess over Ireland and the UK and will make an important contribution to further work in this area.
Their research will be published in the September issue of the Nature Climate Change journal.
Cork City is to get new flood defences but the scheme is not quite ready yet>
When’s the ukraine elections?
@John Smith: great point
@John Smith: You don’t conduct elections during an invasion, it is written into the Ukrainian constitution.
@John Smith: Do you think the russians would allow Ukrainians in the occupied territories to vote?
Do you think these should be denied representation in parliament?
The UK did not hold elections during WWII either.
@John Smith: I knew the first comment would be a putin apologist. Sad.
@Ted Daly: A Putin apologist? Putin is a dirt bag just like Zelenskyy.
Two little dictators, maybe Napoleon complex.
@John Smith: Zelensky is freely elected by the Ukrainian people. And Ukraine’s president is not a ruler with tyrannical powers. It has a parliament too, one with real legislative power.
The last Ukrainian president was impeached by that parliament, when he tried to sell out Ukraine to the russians.
Anyone who believes or claims otherwise is giving away that they *are* a Putin apologist, and have been taken in by russian propaganda, and/or are such propaganda spreaders themselves.
@John Smith: Where are you getting the idea that Zelenskyy is a dictator. Tomorrow you’ll be posting that he’s an irrelevant mouthpiece.
And yet Leo Vradkar ends up being the Taoiseach of this country having gotten less than 8500 votes in the general election of 2020.
Thank God we live in a democracy!
@Denis Slattery:
Leo Varadkar WAS elected by the people in Dublin 15.
Leo Varadkar IS the leader of Fine Gael.
The leader of the party DOES become Taoiseach.
It is indeed democracy.
@Denis Slattery: Coming 7th in his ward whereby he had to sweat the be re-elected. Yep, such a popular leader.
@KTH: He was declared elected on the 5th count after receiving less than 20% of the first preference vote. He wasn’t even the first choice as TD of over 80% of the voters in his own constituency .
The Fine Gael party got 20% of the first preference votes nationally and was the third largest party in terms of seats in the Dail behind Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein. . 80% of the voters nationally did not vote to put Fine Gael into government .
It’s a very peculiar form of democracy when the preferences of 80% of the voting public are ignored .
You would think a Professor of politics would be aware of the irony before writing an article on Putins sham election
@Denis Slattery:
“He was declared elected”
Re-read my post…
I rest my case.
@Denis Slattery: So you understand,why not say that.
@Daniel Roche: dont
I wonder if Putin reads many articles on the Journal? Or does he do what most of us do and skip over them until he finds one with the comments open? Hi, Vlad…
Puck Futin. Slava Ukraini.
@Roy Dowling: wrong
@Roy Dowling: no, free the 100 captive children, at this stage I fear waving a Palestinian flag is more important than abusing children in the dark underground of Gaza… Nobody knows anything about them right? Not even the people who live above the hatches of the tunnels…. Yeagh right!! Fight Israeli soldiers but don’t do exactly the same and abuse children yourself, whatever is the reason behind it. In more simple terms if you don’t understand that, if you condemn me for being an Israeli sympathiser I won’t abduct your children as reprisal, it’s that simple!!!
@peter willekens: No do the countless Palestinian children who are not hostages of Israel.
Because they have been murdered.
Murdered since the Israeli colonist first began attacking the Palestinian people to steal their land, and their homeland.
@John Smith: Why don’t you look it up and share with the class?
If you did, you easily find that as per Ukraines constitution elections are suspended due to the murderous invasion by Putin and his orc army.
I’d be of the opinion that you’re just trying to be clever. Ironically.
A mean the level hypocrisy shown by the west towards Russia is off the charts, the US is the last country to talk about fair elections, 2000 anyone.
@Marcus Maher – Triskellion Films: But 2008 was fair, right?
And 2012?
And 2016?
And 2020? Despite the attempts of the wannabe Putin?
And 1996?
And 1992?
And…
How can you compare the US – as bad as it is – to russia?
I mean, have you really no sense of proportion?
Putin, a weak man.
And you get clowns in the West idolising a literal tyrant that kills off or jails all political opponents and critics, while said tyrant temporarily stepped down to have laws changed to stay president indefinitely after…
Why are comments on Mr Putin allowed, but anything do do with the genocide in Gaza blocked?
I hope those people blocking American aid to Ukraine wont suffer nasty repurcussions in the future for causing a genocide….
@peter willekens: And let’s hope the Israelis are put in front on The Hague for their crimes against humanity, alongside Putin and his minions.
Whatever about the colour of Diane Abbot’s skin, she is without a doubt the thickest MP ever elected!
What a joke the Russian people are as bad as putin
This article is so misrepresentation of the facts of the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet union and president Putin,
Please anybody who wants the facts, follow professor Jeffrey Sacks, and listen to the this man who was part of the American administration during this time,
The writer of this article really must think people only get their news from RTE, BBC and CNN. Plus one of the seven owned news papers of the West.
What ever happened to doing some research. But I guess you don’t need to, when the article is already wrote for you, all you have to do is put your name to it,
Frightening to think you lecture at a university, my God it’s true as one professor said , students come out of university more stupid than when they went in, I can see why.
Bacon took his ‘Study after Velasquez’ gaping mouth from Potemkin film, there you go now.
“faux oppositionists”… “pseudo-challengers”, Goebbels would be so proud.
Meanwhile in Missouri over 23,000 dead people registered to vote in one week in February.
have your say