Sunshine at Stormont Belfast News Letter

News Letter

Footage from Stormont in Belfast on the last of the sunshine, after a two-week spell of almost non stop sun. Ben Lowry, the News Letter editor, reflects on how unusual it has been. Taken on Saturday April 12 2025

Transcript

00:00It's the very last of a fun run that there was here in Stormont just a while ago.

00:05And this is the last of the sunshine that there's been exceptional sunshine.

00:13I haven't really needed this hat. It hasn't been that warm.

00:17But I've certainly needed the sunglasses.

00:20It has been exceptionally sunny.

00:23It's probably one of the sunniest spells in recorded history in Northern Ireland.

00:28Sunshine spells are quite difficult to collate.

00:34It began about a fortnight ago, Saturday, March 29.

00:38Somewhere in Northern Ireland got almost nine hours of sunshine that day.

00:43And in almost every day since, apart from two,

00:48there has been at least ten hours of sunshine in any day in Northern Ireland.

00:52And in most days in Northern Ireland, there has been more than twelve hours of sunshine.

00:57And the reason that is so exceptional is that we're not that far past the equinox,

01:02where you obviously get twelve hours of daylight, twelve hours of sunshine every day.

01:07At the moment, it's heading towards fourteen hours.

01:10Most of the sunny spell, it's been thirteen hours of daylight.

01:13In other words, to have twelve hours plus of sunshine most days is about ninety percent plus, ninety-three percent, that kind of thing.

01:21In other words, as good as wall-to-wall sunshine.

01:26It hasn't been that warm.

01:27It's been way, way above average for April.

01:29Low twenties this week.

01:31In fact, Castlederg in Northern Ireland was the warmest place in the UK on Wednesday.

01:36And amongst the warmest on Thursday and Friday, approaching twenty-two degrees.

01:43But it was in terms of the sunshine that it was completely remarkable.

01:48Look at this clip from Stormont on April the second, which was another of the days that there was blazing sunshine.

01:55In fact, there were a few days where, or a few moments anyway, where there wasn't a cloud over the British Isles, over Britain or Ireland.

02:04And that's very unusual.

02:06I mean, even at very sunny moments, there's usually a cluster of clouds somewhere over Britain or Ireland.

02:13And quite a few days where there wasn't a cloud over the island of Ireland.

02:16Not a cloud.

02:17And just this cloudlessness is unusual.

02:23Actually, the reverse, even in Northern Ireland, we think it's grey all the time, is unusual.

02:29There was a spell in February of eleven days where, six days, not any sun at all.

02:35And over five days, there was only half an hour of sunshine.

02:38And that was at Armagh.

02:39And that's only been recorded about five times since Armagh began recording weather in the 1800s.

02:47So this sunny spell was exceptionally rare.

02:50And all you could do was try to enjoy it.

02:52Which I'm going to do now, for the last hour.

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