The Irish went shopping to stockpile enough food, especially bread, in anticipation of Hurricane Emma, which is forecast to cause the worst snowfall in the country since 1982.
A red alert has been declared in the country for Thursday and the authorities are now calling on the people not to walk aimlessly on the streets.
Some people decided to follow this recommendation to the letter: they bought food for many days and on social networking sites many photos have been posted showing supermarket shelves empty.
The Lidl chain of stores has confirmed that there has been an increase in sales as many are gathering essentials to deal with bad weather. And Tesco supermarkets announced that they increased their orders for bread by 20% to meet demand.
On Twitter, many users joked about the situation by posting photos from the empty shelves of bakeries. "Obviously, the residents of Ferrybank and Sliveri are taking things very seriously," wrote one, under photos of shops where even milk and vegetables had disappeared.
The hashtags #snowmaggedon ("Snow Armageddon") and #breadwatch ("Bread Patrol") broke and many said they were surprised by the unprecedented preparations for bad weather that is expected to last only two days.
Others took the opportunity to exchange recipes for making bread at home, finding that all types of bread were sold in the blink of an eye.