October was wettest month on record, says Armagh Observatory

October ended with devastating flooding in Newry and the torrential rain has continued into November

October 2023 was the wettest month on record in County Armagh, breaking the previous record set in 1870, according to an observatory.

Last month also had the warmest October day for 97 years.

Armagh Observatory, one of dozens of weather stations around Northern Ireland has recorded daily rainfall at its meteorological station since 1838.

It recorded a total of 195.4mm rainfall in October, exceeding the 193.8mm observed 153 years ago.

County Armagh was affected by severe flooding in some areas at the end of October and start of November.

The Met Office has also said county Down had its wettest October ever.

As well as being the warmest October day for almost a century, the temperature of 21.7C is the third highest October temperature ever recorded at the observatory.

Its director Prof Michael Burton said the data sent a clear signal.

"There's no doubt in the pattern we're all seeing - these are all evidence of the world's changing climate," he said.

"Essentially the extreme will become more often and so you get more hot days, more wet days, you even get cold days as well.

"But it's the extreme - it's no longer an oddity, it's a regular event that these things are happening and they're happening everywhere."

It comes as communities in counties Down, Armagh and Antrim start to assess the damage after flooding this week.

Recent rainfall has made for difficult driving conditions in many parts of Northern Ireland

While Professor Burton said no single measurement should have too much read into it, he explained that a warmer atmosphere does hold more water and that means we are likely to experience more warmer, wetter winters.

"That's physics," he added.

Analysis: Time running out on climate change

When it comes to discerning climate change in action, the more evidence you can gather, the better.

And more than 200 years' worth of consistent records make for a lot of evidence.

It allows patterns and changes to be clearly detected.

The records at Armagh Observatory show definitively that climate change is affecting our lives here and now.

As well as more rainfall as the result of a warming atmosphere, the increasing temperature can also be seen in the data and these all present challenges for us to adapt to.

But they are also a signal that time to mitigate the impact of climate change is running out.