By Editor, and Claire Corrigan
The highest snow levels ever recorded since Met office records began in the town were recorded last week, with 18cms (4.5 inches) of snow on Tuesday night- Wednesday morning last, 17cms in Collinstown, and 16 cms in Athlone. A maximum of 15cms in 1951, was the highest ever recorded in Mullingar’s Meteorigoical Station in the past eighty years.
The man who had the narrowest local escape last week, was a Mullingar businessman, trapped in a car for more than half a day, because his mobile phone had been forgotten. His wife, distraught at her inability to contact him from 6pm onwards, was left in distress, until 10am the next morning, when he was freed – having been helped by neighbours, who brought him tea, and all he needed tostay there in his jeep. His experience in a deep snowdrift at Gainstown will be a lifetime memory for them both.
What made this week’s snowfall more dangerous that other since 1947, was the east winds, and the big fall of snow on Tuesday night – Wednesday morning. The light dry snow on the ground, whipped up by the winds, raced into snowdrifts anywhere the snow is trapped and as fields were “emptied” of several inches of snow, this was trapped on the roads, beside houses, at gable ends, or wherever the wind took it. Met Eireann explained that in many parts of Westmeath, the snowfalls of the week, when combined, were probably the worst in a century, but had no figures.
