Rainfall prediction for a flooding event in Ireland caused by the remnants of Hurricane Charley

The high resolution limited area weather prediction model HIRLAM is used to predict 24 h rainfall amounts for a past flooding event in Ireland. The model is run with horizontal resolutions of 55, 28, 13 and 6 km. The effects of increased resolution are studied for the storm cyclone developed from the remnants of Hurricane Charley (25 August 1986), that led to severe flooding in and around Dublin. Special attention is given to the predictions for the catchment of the river Dodder, situated in an orographically complex area south of Dublin. The model is verified using 24 h rainfall totals of 513 Irish stations. For this particular extreme event, increasing the resolution has a beneficial effect on the predictions of the rainfall amounts for both Ireland as a whole and the catchment of the Dodder.