IT wasn't just lockdown restrictions that made July 2020 incredibly dull - it was also the weather, which according to Armagh Observatory was the dullest for 34 years.
It was also cooler and wetter than average, although with a mean temperature of just 14.7 C it was just 0.2 C cooler than the 1796-2010 pattern for the month and 1.1C lower than the 1981-2010 average.
It was the coldest recorded by the Observatory since July 2015 and "unusually, lower than that of the previous month" and more than two degrees lower than July 2019.
The warmest day was 22.6 C on July 16, followed by 21.5 C on July 30.
The warmest night was 15.2 C on July 17 and the lowest 7.2 C on July 10 with ground frost on July 18/19.
Rainfall was 15 per cent higher than the long-term (1838-2010) average with 3.35 inches and 36 per cent more than the 30-year average and since July 2012.
The wettest day was July 22 when 0.4 inches of rain fell.
The Observatory also reported "a flock of gulls was observed flying over the... grounds on the morning of one of the half-dozen totally dry days of the month".
"It is interesting to remark that while rainfall totals fluctuate significantly from day to day and month to month, and even from place to place, the long-term rainfall record at Armagh shows no evidence for any systematic trend in precipitation towards either significantly wetter or drier values," it said.
"... Monthly data from the last 15 years suggest... that relatively wet Julys may become more frequent than has recently been the case during the second half of the twentieth century."
