Coldest Clare winter in half a century

IT was the coldest winter in Clare for almost 50 years, with a mean temperature of just 3.1 degrees at the Met Éireann weather station at Shannon.

Met Eireann defines winter as the months of December, January and February and the last time the mean temperature for this period was lower was in 1962/63 when it was 2.5 degrees.
The amount of rainfall at Shannon was down 49% on the average for winter, while there was 42% more sunshine.
The mean temperature for the month of February was also very low at 3.4 degrees, the lowest since 1986.
Clare County Council engineer Tom Tiernan said that the freezing conditions had resulted in new challenges and greater expense for the local authority.
“The amount of attention that would have had to be given to the roads overnight would have doubled at least on last winter and last winter would have been up around 50% on other years, so you could say it was three times as busy as an average year. In terms of expenditure, there would have been a much greater demand for salt and there would have been much more manpower needed.”
The cold weather followed the flooding of last November which resulted in €16 million worth of property insurance claims being made in new figures have revealed.
Figures published by the Irish Insurance Federation (IIF) show that the combined insured property cost of the November floods and the January freeze nationally stands at €541 million. This figure is significantly higher than the total cost of all serious weather events in the past 10 years.
The January freeze will see insurers pay nearly €300 million to customers whose homes were affected by burst pipes.
Mike Kemp, IIF chief executive said:
“The combined insurance cost of these two severe weather events, that happened in quick succession, is likely to be nearly 60% of annual turnover in the property insurance market. In 2008, insurers saw a 29% increase in household claims and this upward trend continued in 2009, even before the flood and burst pipes claims hit.”
While the November floods, the cost for which totalled €244 million in terms of insurance claims, had consequences mostly in Munster, the West and the Midlands, the three counties worst hit were Cork, Galway and Clare with claims between commercial and household property of over €141m, €23m and €16m respectively.
The freezing weather conditions from late December into the new year affected the entire country and Cork and Galway were again seriously affected by the freezing weather conditions and property insurance claims covering household and commercial property due to the freeze in Cork, Dublin and Galway currently stand at over €38 million, €33 million and €23 million respectively.
While the damage caused by the November floods was very visible to all, in contrast, the damage caused by freeze primarily related to burst pipes in the home.
Mr Kemp pointed out that “while the costs have been huge, one consequence of the claims paid is the injection of over half a billion euro directly back into the Irish economy, which will benefit many of the trades, especially in the construction sector, that have been hit hardest by the recession.”
A further effect of the extreme conditions is a likely rise in premiums.
“Insurance is about protecting against risk and that is the essential vital role we will continue to play in Irish society. However, with increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather conditions, questions inevitably arise as to the future cost and even insurability of some risks, particularly flood risk in some parts of the country.
“Whilst we cannot prevent natural catastrophes and the impact of climate change may only be reversible in the very long term, if at all, there are measures that can be taken to minimise the damage caused by weather events in the future. But there has to be a concerted, national approach, with clear ownership, to address issues such as improving planning and development rules to take greater account of flood risk, the priority attached to investment in flood defences, and even practical day-to-day measures such as effective and consistent management and maintenance of watercourses and drainage,” Mr Kemp stated.