Is this the wettest winter ever?

blue5000

I was just sitting in the cab of the tractor after feeding cattle this morning, staring out at more rain falling. It occurred to me that this has to be the wettest winter that I ever remember. I need to move slurry this week, but I reckon it'll be just a case of shifting it from a couple of full tanks to other less full tanks:(.
At least we got a dryish week about 3 weeks back to shift some slurry, but ppl farming in counties with the longer closed periods must be under pressure now. How has it affected you?

atlantic mist

read some where it was the wettest winter in 48 years

croot

blue5000 wrote: »

...but ppl farming in counties with the longer closed periods must be under pressure now. How has it affected you?

I'm in the second area for closed period. We always have to have enough storage for at least 5 months because land is usually in poor condition regardless of the extra rainfall.

All mine are in since the end of October and not a hope getting anything out before mid March at the earliest with a good month of drying. I don't think I ever spread slurry before then either so no different to any other year for me.

croot

Problem for me now is the fu*king satellite signal is gone with the heavy rain just as the match is starting....

Kovu

blue5000 wrote: »

How has it affected you?

My toes are starting to evolve into webbed ones.

Bullocks

Its definitely the wettest winter I can remember. I hope to jaysus it changes soon but at least its the right time of the year for rain and hopefully we might get a nice summer .
All the cattle are in , we got a few tanks out last week in a few hours of dry weather but it still wasn't ideal .

mayota

It's relentless here in north Mayo. Definitely the wettest winter ever. A lot of lads with full tanks and land too wet. The brother got 40k gallons out last Thursday but he's lucky to have good free draining land. My place here is saturated, I know it's the season for it but it's depressing.

Birdnuts

mayota wrote: »

It's relentless here in north Mayo. Definitely the wettest winter ever. A lot of lads with full tanks and land too wet. The brother got 40k gallons out last Thursday but he's lucky to have good free draining land. My place here is saturated, I know it's the season for it but it's depressing.

+ 1

I can vouche for that after spending the last 2 weeks on my place down there catching up on odd jobs around the farm. And thats after a very grim summer even compared to the rest of the country!!. With many predictions for more of the same, made even worse by a colder airflow, its going to be hardship all around.:(

PS - I remember 86' and the winters of 89,89 and 90 being very bad too in this regard

Bullocks

Birdnuts wrote: »

+ 1

I can vouche for that after spending the last 2 weeks on my place down there catching up on odd jobs around the farm. And thats after a very grim summer even compared to the rest of the country!!. With many predictions for more of the same, made even worse by a colder airflow, its going to be hardship all around.:(

PS - I remember 86' and the winters of 89,89 and 90 being very bad too in this regard

Yup , the last summer was far from dry . I'd say that caused alot of problems with regard to the flooding , lakes, rivers or drains never dropped levels much during the summer

blue5000

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055579971&page=266
M T cranium's forecast with imogen on the way in, no excuses for not finishing off the profit monitor this week......

Miname

I'm not too bad here. In cat c so the longest closed period, a bit of a joke as I have fairly dry ground. I've let out a few yearlings a forthnight ago and there fine. Autumn calves have been let out too and seem quite content out. I wouldn't mind a bit of a chance to get urea out.

Nekarsulm

Legal or not, there are tankerfulls going over hedges round these parts. Fellows mindfull to only blow it into a "drier" bank, so no run off.
The County Councils seem very quiet however, probably because in places they are at the same craic themselves . Up through Kilnaleck last week one day, and they had the 1acre field surrounding the treatment plant absolutely plastered black.

patsy_mccabe

In fairness, any run-off from land will get well diluted and washed away in the rivers. I know that's not the ideal way, but what can you do.
From a quick glance at Met Eireann data, January was only about average, but Nov and Dec got twice the average.

tanko

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

In fairness, any run-off from land will get well diluted and washed away in the rivers. I know that's not the ideal way, but what can you do.
From a quick glance at Met Eireann data, January was only about average, but Nov and Dec got twice the average.

What is average tho? Average rainfall is recalculated every year and is based on the rainfall for the previous twenty years AFAIK.
I wonder is the average rainfall figure being used at the moment much different than the average figure used in the seventies or eighties?
It would be interesting to see the total rainfall amounts for each of the last fifty years to see if the climate is getting wetter.

ihatewinter

The winters have definitely changed. Less frost and still cold days to rain and windy days. Never remembered a winter as bad. It's funny how Irish people never get use to rain. We're born into it, live through it and it's still raining when we pass.

Bleating Lamb

Biggest thing I have noticed this winter is that apart from the fairly consistent rain during a lot of daylight hours....it is absolutely lashing rain at night.

_Brian

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

Biggest thing I have noticed this winter is that apart from the fairly consistent rain during a lot of daylight hours....it is absolutely lashing rain at night.

December was the darkest month I ever remember, I saw figures somewhere that there was only something like 20 hours of "sunshine" for the whole month..

Ground here is wetter than in November, was out in a field with jeep yesterday and only just made it back to dry land..:mad:

joejobrien

tanko wrote: »

What is average tho? Average rainfall is recalculated every year and is based on the rainfall for the previous twenty years AFAIK.
I wonder is the average rainfall figure being used at the moment much different than the average figure used in the seventies or eighties?
It would be interesting to see the total rainfall amounts for each of the last fifty years to see if the climate is getting wetter.

AFAIK, its a 30 year average. and yes it appears to be rising.
So yes this average thats been bantered is generally on the upside .
Strange that some dry farmers here ,dont appear to be much affected:D

Birdnuts

People shouldn't make the mistake of assuming the climate they grew with is going to be the one they witness on their dieing day. Irelands climate has always experienced often rapid changes since the dawn of time. I'm not talking about "global warming" here but sharp changes to colder,wetter, warmers etc. regimes. through the history of human occupation on this island eg. A sharp deteriation in the climate 6k years ago wiped out farming communities in many parts of the west. The story behind the Ceide Fields in North Mayo being a prime example.

tanko

Birdnuts wrote: »

People shouldn't make the mistake of assuming the climate they grew with is going to be the one they witness on their dieing day. Irelands climate has always experienced often rapid changes since the dawn of time. I'm not talking about "global warming" here but sharp changes to colder,wetter, warmers etc. regimes. through the history of human occupation on this island eg. A sharp deteriation in the climate 6k years ago wiped out farming communities in many parts of the west. The story behind the Ceide Fields in North Mayo being a prime example.

There's a big difference between what's going on, on this planet now compared to 6k years ago, six billion more people give or take for a start.

Birdnuts

tanko wrote: »

There's a big difference between what's going on, on this planet now compared to 6k years ago, six billion more people give or take for a start.

Oh I don't doubt that - just saying that are climate has never been fixed, indeed based on the last 2 million years of climate patterns we are actually overdue an ice-age. Twould be Reindeer farming for most at that stage;)

pedigree 6

Birdnuts wrote: »

People shouldn't make the mistake of assuming the climate they grew with is going to be the one they witness on their dieing day. Irelands climate has always experienced often rapid changes since the dawn of time. I'm not talking about "global warming" here but sharp changes to colder,wetter, warmers etc. regimes. through the history of human occupation on this island eg. A sharp deteriation in the climate 6k years ago wiped out farming communities in many parts of the west. The story behind the Ceide Fields in North Mayo being a prime example.

+1. Climate changes always, whether man made or natural through volcanic eruptions or sun cooling downs or shifts in the earth's rotation.
It has always changed and always will and it does happen very quickly when it happens.
When the romans were in Britain they used to say that no tillage could be grown in Hibernia for the climate was too wet.
Then we had dry times and cold times and famines and hardships in between.
For as long as people have been on this island the weather must have always been an opening line when meeting people.

Someone said that the weather always averages out, in that case we'll all be giving out about the drought this summer.;)

jack o shea

A drought is one thing we will never have in this cursed part of the world.

Midfield9

http://www.met.ie/climate/monthly-data.asp

zetecescort

Midfield9 wrote: »

http://www.met.ie/climate/monthly-data.asp

Only checked 1 or 2 stations but it's interesting how a month may differ from year to year but the annual totals are fairly consistent.

joejobrien

zetecescort wrote: »

Only checked 1 or 2 stations but it's interesting how a month may differ from year to year but the annual totals are fairly consistent.

There is upward pressure on the average by an large.
The average rainfall a good number years back if memory serves me correctly was 930, now 977.5. Now when the last 2 years added to it will increase it but little as it is an average of the 30 years. However I cant comment on other stations, but take your point.
But if this is suppose to average out by so called experts were in for a major drought:D

_Brian

The distribution of rain within the year is important as the total. Deluges of rain are challenging ground and drainage systems causing extreme water logging.
This is take much longer to dry out and so the effect is more pronounced, particularly on heavy clay soils.

Even with cleaning drains and moleploughing we seem to be loosing ground here and conditions are worsening overall.

Timmaay

_Brian wrote: »

The distribution of rain within the year is important as the total. Deluges of rain are challenging ground and drainage systems causing extreme water logging.
This is take much longer to dry out and so the effect is more pronounced, particularly on heavy clay soils.

Even with cleaning drains and moleploughing we seem to be loosing ground here and conditions are worsening overall.

The new neighbours here did not skimp on drainage when they purchase the land beside us, they must have spend an easy 50k on a 12inch pipe, loads of stones, mole ploughing etc, we all thought it was serious overkill at the time, however there was some serious waterlogged this winter there! Whenever we had it rented, I'd have called it reasonably dry land, usually grazed from 1st March until end of Nov, so it's hard to know if expensive work as such is justifiably.

J.O. Farmer

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

In fairness, any run-off from land will get well diluted and washed away in the rivers. I know that's not the ideal way, but what can you do.

It'd be a good laugh giving that justification to whatever inspector is whinging about the slurry your spreading.

patsy_mccabe

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

It'd be a good laugh giving that justification to whatever inspector is whinging about the slurry your spreading.

Well the way I see it, there was 8 million people here just before the famine and barely toilet between them.:D

RightTurnClyde

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Well the way I see it, there was 8 million people here just before the famine and barely toilet between them.:D

There must have been slot of happy ducks around then aswell

Sam Kade

jack o shea wrote: »

A drought is one thing we will never have in this cursed part of the world.

Were you around in 1984

Sam Kade

blue5000 wrote: »

I was just sitting in the cab of the tractor after feeding cattle this morning, staring out at more rain falling. It occurred to me that this has to be the wettest winter that I ever remember. I need to move slurry this week, but I reckon it'll be just a case of shifting it from a couple of full tanks to other less full tanks:(.
At least we got a dryish week about 3 weeks back to shift some slurry, but ppl farming in counties with the longer closed periods must be under pressure now. How has it affected you?

You need to change the ever part to living memory.

Bullocks

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Well the way I see it, there was 8 million people here just before the famine and barely toilet between them.:D

I'd say there wasn't as much going in to come out back then , certainly weren't swelled from takeaway and beer !

blue5000

Sam Kade wrote: »

You need to change the ever part to living memory.

Showing my age now alright, whatever about kovu getting webbed toes, mine are getting wrinkled from being submerged. You'd nearly want the 4wd on in the jeep driving through my yard today.

sonandheir

Of the past 95 days it has rained on 94 of them. Only day with 24 hours of no rain was Dec 27. Taken from current wet spell data here

http://www.galwaycityweather.com/today.htm

And here

http://www.galwaycityweather.com/record.htm

That's based in Galway.

Bullocks

sonandheir wrote: »

Of the past 95 days it has rained on 94 of them. Only day with 24 hours of no rain was Dec 27. Taken from current wet spell data here

http://www.galwaycityweather.com/today.htm

And here

http://www.galwaycityweather.com/record.htm

That's based in Galway.

It's not wrong .
When is it going to feckin stop ?

_Brian

Sam Kade wrote: »

Were you around in 1984

Followed by 1986, the wettest ****ty **** of a summer I remember. Seeing field after field of hay lost and pushed into hedges with buck rakes.

Sam Kade

_Brian wrote: »

Followed by 1986, the wettest ****ty **** of a summer I remember. Seeing field after field of hay lost and pushed into hedges with buck rakes.

85 was the wet year, 84 in cork we had no rain from April to September, farmers were spreading water with slurry tanks after spreading fertiliser they were so desperate. 86 was a good summer apart from hurricane Charlie in August.

Nekarsulm

1984 was good. Easter had a mini heatwave. A guy I know was in Ag College and was one of those on duty over Easter.
They spent all their spare time round the pool and got tanned, somehow at one point he swam into the end wall and ended up with a black eye and his scalp split open.

Dawggone

Sam Kade wrote: »

85 was the wet year, 84 in cork we had no rain from April to September, farmers were spreading water with slurry tanks after spreading fertiliser they were so desperate. 86 was a good summer apart from hurricane Charlie in August.

+1.
84 was one of the best years, weatherwise and financially, in my lifetime.
I'm still trying to erase 85 from my memory.

tanko

Sam Kade wrote: »

85 was the wet year, 84 in cork we had no rain from April to September, farmers were spreading water with slurry tanks after spreading fertiliser they were so desperate. 86 was a good summer apart from hurricane Charlie in August.

Was 86 not a very wet summer also?

_Brian

tanko wrote: »

Was 86 not a very wet summer also?

Yea. Washout here anyway.

Fuxake

85 and 86 were horrendous. In my memory, there was probably more rain in 85 but it was falling on dry ground so it took a while for it to go tits up. We got first cut silage in May handy enough but by July I remember getting bogged down with a load of hay bales. By September we were still looking at hay not saved. By 86 we went 100% silage, and we had ferocious damage drawing it all in. 86 was also a hoor of a year, maybe a little less rain but ground was softer after all the rain of 85. Old boy was going ballistic. Jeez when I look back now I thought that the summer rain would last for ever, those were the worst days of my life

patsy_mccabe

I remember that wet summer, 1985 or whenever. We cut all hay at the time. I remember having to make small 'grass cocks' of a whole field. Then shake them all out again, only to watch it rain heavy again. The whole field was buck-raked into a corner to rot. We made all silage after that, like a lot of people. It's incredible now, to watch one guy baling with a fusion. He'd have the whole lot done in a few hours, while listening to the radio sitting in an air conditioned cab.:)

freedominacup

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I remember that wet summer, 1985 or whenever. We cut all hay at the time. I remember having to make small 'grass cocks' of a whole field. Then shake them all out again, only to watch it rain heavy again. The whole field was buck-raked into a corner to rot. We made all silage after that, like a lot of people. It's incredible now, to watch one guy baling with a fusion. He'd have the whole lot done in a few hours, while listening to the radio sitting in an air conditioned cab.:)

We hadn't made any real quantities of hay for years before '85 but that year finished it. All we made was for calves. It just struck me that '85 was the first year we made bale silage. Real bitch of a job with bags, no wrapper.

Sam Kade

tanko wrote: »

Was 86 not a very wet summer also?

Nowhere as bad as 85 in cork anyway, I was going out on hire square baling hay and straw made 22k bales that year.

White Clover

Sam Kade wrote: »

Nowhere as bad as 85 in cork anyway, I was going out on hire square baling hay and straw made 22k bales that year.

What kind of gear were you running then Sam?

Dawggone

Sam Kade wrote: »

Nowhere as bad as 85 in cork anyway, I was going out on hire square baling hay and straw made 22k bales that year.

Did a lot of small squares in the 60's and 70's (hire work). It was lovely work until the bale sleigh came along.

Odelay

Dawggone wrote: »

Did a lot of small squares in the 60's and 70's (hire work). It was lovely work until the bale sleigh came along.

What did the bale sleigh do to harm it?

Dawggone

Odelay wrote: »

What did the bale sleigh do to harm it?

Pulling a rope every 6or8 bales wasn't easy. I wrapped the rope around my hand once and the sleigh detached from the baler...dragged me out the back of the tractor!