THIS month has been the wettest June ever recorded by the Met Office – and there are still six days to go.
And, with 48.7mm of rain causing various floods in Douglas, Laxey and Peel, Friday (June 22) was the wettest June day on record. It beat the previous record on June 17 last year by just 0.1mm.
At 9am on Saturday, the Met Office at Ronaldsway recorded 144.1mm of rain making it the wettest June so far and there is still with a week to go. The previous wettest was June 1982 with 132.8mm. Records began at Ronaldsway in 1947.
The consistent heavy rainfall resulted in fire fighters across the island being called out to various domestic flooding incidents over the weekend.
On Friday at 1.30pm, a fire crew attended a commercial property at the Spring Valley Commercial Estate. A crew then attended the Quarterbridge pub at 4pm to replace sandbags and help move stock away from water coming in from the overflowing river and at 7pm firefighters used sandbags and light pumping equipment in a home in Windermere Drive, Onchan. An hour later, a crew attended a domestic flooding at Derby Square. Then at 10.55pm, Laxey firefighters used sandbags and light pumping equipment to stop water going into the basement of a property in Shore Road. At 12.05am on Saturday, a Douglas crew helped with flooding caused by a faulty blocked pump in the basement of a Waverley Terrace property before moving on to an incident on Queens promenade. And at 1.44am, Douglas crews fought for two hours to pump out a Queen’s promenade basement with cars in it.
However, a fire service spokesman said: ‘The island had a lucky escape compared to areas in the northwest of England and Northern Ireland.’