Will it ever stop raining?

Weather is the major topic of conversation in daily life in Donegal. People often remark that the rain seems to fall heavier and harder now than it did 30 or 50 years ago. Farmers speak of sudden downpours that flood fields, while towns and villages have endured what feels like more regular flash flooding after intense bursts of rain.

But are these memories of the soft misty rain of the past giving way to torrential downpours in the present borne out by the data?

That’s exactly what the Irish Weather Rescue Project hopes to uncover as it seeks to enlist the public’s help in digitising historical rainfall records - including from more than 30 observation points across Donegal.

There are 160 years worth of daily data to be inputted into an online portal at IrishWeatherRescue.ie. Using that data carefully collated by our forbearers from 1864-1951, meteorologists will be able to analyse long-term trends and compare past and present patterns with far greater accuracy.

This will help scientists better understand Ireland’s climate variability, particularly in relation to extreme rainfall events over the past century and a half - shedding light on whether rainfall really has become more intense, and how human-driven climate change may be influencing these shifts.

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The Irish Weather Rescue project aims to digitise 3.5 million rainfall readings from 763 stations nationwide, many of which were carefully recorded by local volunteers more than a century ago.

The project is calling on Donegal people to become ‘citizen scientists’ and take part in a unique online effort to rescue millions of handwritten weather observations. “This project is a chance for members of the public to make a real and lasting contribution to climate research,” Dr Ciara Ryan, a climatologist at Met Éireann said. “Digitising these records provides access to valuable data that will improve our understanding of Ireland’s climate variability - and, in particular, changes in extreme rainfall events over the past 160 years.”

For Donegal residents, it’s also a way to connect with the county’s scientific heritage. Malin Head, Ireland’s most northerly weather station, dates back to 1885 and has long been the symbol of the country’s meteorological record-keeping.

Records from 33 Donegal stations will be published online, of which eight are in Inishowen: Malin Head, Rockmount and The Manse in Carndonagh, Rockfort, Sea View and The Rectory in Buncrana, and Prospect Villas and The Rectory in Moville. These stations recorded daily rainfall amounts through stormy winters, dry summers and everything in between.

In places like Carndonagh and Buncrana, local observers like Cecil Porter in Carndonagh and Ralph Meredith in Buncrana in the 1930s, or the Reverend S R Craig at the Rectory in Moville or T Colquhoun in Buncrana in the 1890s once measured every drop that fell, forming the backbone of Ireland’s historic rainfall data.
The project is hosted on the Zooniverse platform, where volunteers can view scanned pages of the old rainfall registers and enter the data online. It’s simple, social, and accessible from anywhere - your kitchen table, your local library or your iPad on a rainy winter’s evening.
“In our pilot phase, 300 volunteers transcribed almost 10,000 months’ worth of historic observations,” Dr Rhonda McGovern, postdoctoral researcher and project co-ordinator at Met Éireann, explained. “This is an online project you can contribute to from your sofa or your kitchen table - so if you’re passionate about Irish weather, history, or climate action, this is a great way to get involved.”

Once digitised, the data will help scientists verify climate models, improve forecasts and enhance understanding of long-term rainfall trends - insights that could guide Ireland’s climate resilience planning for the decades ahead.

So, if you’ve ever joked that chatting about the weather is Donegal’s favourite pastime, now’s your chance to put that enthusiasm into action.

Visit IrishWeatherRescue.ie to join in and help preserve our county’s weather story, one rain shower at a time.

The full list of Donegal weather stations, for which records exist is:

Ballyare, Ramelton

Ballyshannon

Bundoran

Convoy

Carndonagh (The Manse)

Carrablagh, Fanet

Carrick

Donegal Island (Revlin House)

Dunfanaghy

Dunkineely (Killaghtee House)

Fairfannan, Killybegs

Fanad (Tamney Rectory)

Glen Alla (Letterkenny)

Glenties (Hatchery)

Gweedore

Horn Head

Inver Glebe

Killybegs

Killygarvin (Glebe)

Kiltoorish

Letterkenny

Letterkenny (District Asylum)

Lough Eske

Lough Island (Reavy-Bann)

Malin Head

Moville (Prospect Villas)

Moville Rectory

Ramelton

Rosapenna Hotel

Rockfort Buncrana

Rockmount, Carndonagh

Sea View, Buncrana

The Rectory, Buncrana

Not all stations are loaded onto the site at once, the active ones currently online are as follows:

Dunfanaghy; Dunkineely (Killaghtee House); Glenties (Hatchery); Malin Head; Rasapenna Hotel; Rockmount, Carndonagh; The Rectory, Buncrana.