Cold spell set to become longest in over 40 years

THE COLD spell is set to become the longest since the winter of 1963 with no respite in prospect from the freezing temperatures. Most places had another sub-zero night last night with temperatures as low as -10 degrees in some places and snow in parts of Connacht and Ulster.

The forecast is for the freezing weather to continue well into next week with heavy falls of snow predicted for Monday and Tuesday in the north and northwest.

Tonight could see falls of snow along the east coast to follow the snow that fell in Dublin on New Year’s Eve and there could also be falls in Ulster and north Connacht.

Met Éireann forecaster Michael McAuliffe said he could not remember a more prolonged period of cold weather.

Snow and ice have been a feature since the weekend before Christmas. “We’ve had cold frosty spells, but, in terms of this prolonged winter period like this, you would have to go back to the winter of 1963. We’ve had more extremes of temperatures since then, but not over such a long period,” Mr McAuliffe said.

There were two particularly severe winters in the last century. One in 1947 became known as the Big Snow; in another cold weather began in December 1962 and lasted for most of January and February of 1963 bringing heavy falls of snow to the east coast.

Even the heavy falls of snow during January 1981 only lasted a week and temperatures were mild either side of it.

Heavy falls of snow caused the closure of Dublin airport for a time yesterday morning despite the efforts of the airport’s snow and ice crew. Dublin Bus ran no services at all yesterday morning and only a limited service in the afternoon.

Bus Éireann was also affected as services to Sligo and Ballina were suspended because of the road conditions around Longford. There was a points failure probably caused by the freezing weather at Connolly Station yesterday and several trains were delayed as a result.

Snow and freezing conditions left the M50, which is the busiest road in the State, very dangerous for a time especially around the Dundrum exit. The M11 was also icy. A number of roads around Dublin were closed yesterday. The Strawberry Beds and Tinkers Hill roads were impassable following a number of crashes. Knockmaroon Hill, in the same area, was also closed.

The bad weather also caused the closure of the Island Bridge, Chapelizod and Parkgate Street gates in the Phoenix Park. There were reports of treacherous roads in counties including Carlow, Laois, Offaly, Longford, Roscommon, Galway, Meath, Louth, Kildare, Dublin and Wexford.

Secondary roads are still dangerous throughout the country.

There were reports of treacherous conditions on the M4 between Mullingar and Kinnegad, on the M1 between Carlingford and Ardee and the junction from Dublin airport on to the Swords Road.