It’s jazzed a bit of rain…

The Guinness Jazz Festival always brings a certain crackle to the Leeside air and organisers hope Storm Austen will only serve to further electrify this year’s celebrations.

Although thunderstorms are on the setlist for later today, Thursday, as the Cork Guinness Jazz Festival kicks off, festivalgoers should not change their tune on account of shoddy weather, says Festival Committee Chair, Fiona Collins.

“My hope is that the storm will blow itself out on Thursday and into Friday,” she said. “That will leave us with maybe with a showery weekend as opposed to a very wet weekend.

“We'll cope with a few showers. The hope is that everything will go ahead as normal. The Child Prague is out!”

Cork, along with all of Ireland, enters a Status Yellow Rain warning thanks to the first named storm of the season, Storm Austen, from 7pm today which will remain in place until 8pm tomorrow, Friday.

With this in mind, Fiona advises festivalgoers to “dress for the weather” and to have a fair idea of where they’re going before they head out by looking over the full festival programme at guinnesscorkjazz.com.

Jazz is all about improvisation, and Fiona has assured the public that, whatever the weather, the beloved festival will roll with the punches and deliver as it always does.

“We've seen wet weekends throughout the history of the jazz festival. It's not our first one, it won't be its last one,” she said.

“You don't know where jazz might pop up over the weekend, even when the rain is there, because we'll try and find alternative spaces indoors. Whether that's maybe the shopping centre or somewhere with a really big canopy that we can steal for ten minutes, we'll work it out,” she said.

Elizabeth Fort sets the stage

With renovations ongoing at the Crawford Art Gallery on Emmett Place, the famous jazz open-air stage will instead occupy one of Cork city’s most iconic landmarks, Elizabeth Fort on Barrack Street.

Less than a five minute walk from the Grand Parade, and in close proximity to some of the southside’s most iconic bars, the fort has become a regular host for cultural events on Leeside.

“It looks like a really nice venue. It's such a historic place in the city and we're really thrilled to be able to invite people to come and see it and experience the jazz up there,” said Fiona.

“I just hope we can get across the idea that it's not that far from the city centre. It's not. It's literally a three or four minute walk from the library, so it's not long at all.

“It'll be nice to have such a historic building being used for the Jazz Festival, so we're really excited about it,” she said.

Met Éireann outlook

Ireland’s national weather forecaster, Met Éireann, has outlined that, once Storm Austen clears on Friday, there will be a brief drier interlude. However, conditions will become very unsettled over the weekend.

Widespread heavy rain is expected with potential for localised flooding, difficult travelling conditions and impacts to outdoor events.

With ground already saturated, intense rainfall will run-off quickly, increasing the risk of flooding, especially in built-up and low-lying areas. Given uncertainty in the track of Storm Austen, more significant impacts are possible and updates to warnings are likely.