By Jonathan Magee
After last year’s exceptional warmth, Donegal experienced a much more typical – if unsettled – mid May, with rain and wind making it feel cooler than normal for this time of the year.
The contrast with this time last year is stark.
May 2025 saw parts of the northwest record temperatures of around 25 to 26 degrees Celsius during a notable Irish heat spell, making it one of the warmest mid-Mays in recent memory for the region.
This year has reverted to more familiar Atlantic conditions – cooler, wetter and more overcast than last spring’s sunshine. A year earlier, in May 2024, Letterkenny also saw cooler and more unsettled weather, with humid air, showers and thunderstorm warnings.
Looking at the broader picture over the past decade, northwest Ireland has generally trended slightly warmer overall – particularly in spring and early summer – but also increasingly erratic, swinging between prolonged dry high-pressure spells and heavy Atlantic systems.
In recent days and weeks the rain makes this year feel duller than average, but temperatures remain in line with long-term May norms.
The real outlier, meteorologists say, was last year – not this one.