§ Mr. William RossTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information he has as to the amount of rainfall in the catchment areas of the rivers most affected by the recent flooding; and how the amount of rainfall on this occasion compares with other widespread rainfalls in those same areas and falling in the same time scale in recent years.
§ Mr. Sainsbury[holding answer, 6 November 1987]: Data from the Northern Ireland raingauge network are still being received by the Meteorological Office and subjected to quality control. Early returns do, however, show that during the latter half of October the heaviest rainfalls occurred in south Armagh, over the Mountains of Mourne, over parts of County Antrim in and around Belfast and northwards to Glen Whirrey, over Ballypatrick forest and from north-east of Londonderry through County Tyrone down to County Fermanagh. In these areas the daily rainfall totals were very rare with estimated return periods of around 200 years or more.