Summer 2020 - General Discussion

Gaoth Laidir

Farmer2017 wrote: »

If Ireland did that the goodie goods be shouting that farmers are polluting the waterways. Farmers can’t win in this country. I love the way people tell how others should do there job when in reality they haven’t a clue what there talking about. But everyday ye thank a farmer 3 times for putting food on your table. Sad reality s this country needs rain for the survival of it crops. Good weather is welcome but not for prolonged periods. It cost massive massive investment to conserve water at a local authority level and will the tax payer be willing to pay for it ?????? ....................No they won’t. So the next time your sitting out in your garden think about the countryside and wildlife suffering from lack of water. A balance weather is what needed but it either too wet r too dry.

No point having a go at us here. Years ago I worked for my neighbour who built his own resevoir and collected all the rainwater that collected on his glasshouse roofs. He used this water to irrigate the glasshouses (1 acre) throughout the year. He also dug a well that he used in weather such as this to fill the tractor sprayer with water and we used a hose off it to water acres of iceberg, chinese leaves, cabbage, etc. out in the fields plant by plant.

This didn't cost him a fortune. Saved him a fortune, actually.

Clonmel1000

Nobody enjoyed the recent weather as much as I did but you have to call it for what it is today miserable and the forecast looks even worse. The danger of course is that we revert to type now with the weather pattern and the next 2 months bring nothing but the gloom and overcast conditions and people on here defending 16 degrees and cloudy as something good.

US2

Farmer2017 wrote: »

If Ireland did that the goodie goods be shouting that farmers are polluting the waterways. Farmers can’t win in this country. I love the way people tell how others should do there job when in reality they haven’t a clue what there talking about. But everyday ye thank a farmer 3 times for putting food on your table. Sad reality s this country needs rain for the survival of it crops. Good weather is welcome but not for prolonged periods. It cost massive massive investment to conserve water at a local authority level and will the tax payer be willing to pay for it ?????? ....................No they won’t. So the next time your sitting out in your garden think about the countryside and wildlife suffering from lack of water. A balance weather is what needed but it either too wet r too dry.

Why should the taxpayer pay for it? Majority of farmers produce is consumed outside of Ireland isnt it.

Gonzo

Clonmel1000 wrote: »

Nobody enjoyed the recent weather as much as I did but you have to call it for what it is today miserable and the forecast looks even worse..

I definitely enjoyed the good weather as much as you did and yep today is not nice at all. Drizzly muck showers here for the past hour, luckily I did my walk this morning before the rain arrived. Things will deteriorate further over the next 3 days but we should see a half decent improvement for next week. I am fairly certain this first half of June will be fairly forgettable and hard to take after 3 glorious months, but I'm still hopefull we will see a significant improvement towards the end of June and into July. Considering the wonderful Spring we had, if we even manage a decent July we will be ahead of ourselves. Wishing for a decent August is a bit more of a dream but miracles can happen, hopefully this is the year for August to shine!

Slashermcguirk

US2 wrote: »

In mm terms probably but I'm sure Ireland has more days with rain than those places

Scotland is way wetter than Ireland. It’s unbearable the weather over there. It literally never stops raining from my experience over there. I also have a friend that moved from Glasgow to Dublin and he said the weather in Dublin is infinitely better!

Wales and the northern half of England also have awful weather.

Thelonious Monk

Slashermcguirk wrote: »

Scotland is way wetter than Ireland. It’s unbearable the weather over there. It literally never stops raining from my experience over there. I also have a friend that moved from Glasgow to Dublin and he said the weather in Dublin is infinitely better!

Wales and the northern half of England also have awful weather.

I spent a year in Edinburgh and it barely rained at all, but I believe Glasgow, even though it's only an hour away, is far wetter

pad199207

Heavy Rain Shower here in Kildare. A treat.

DellyBelly

Despite the change i think we can all agree that is was a great summer. Those last few weeks and especially the last week will make 2020 one to remember...

new2tri19

DellyBelly wrote: »

Despite the change i think we can all agree that is was a great summer. Those last few weeks and especially the last week will make 2020 one to remember...

we are only 4 days into Summer

pauldry

Lots of years we have had a dry spell between late March and early June. Even remember a couple of years ago March 25th to June 4th was good.

I think this period offers optimum sunshine in Connaught

Gonzo

DellyBelly wrote: »

Despite the change i think we can all agree that is was a great summer. Those last few weeks and especially the last week will make 2020 one to remember...

It was an amazing Spring and indeed felt more like summer than spring. I have a feeling we are far from done with warm and settled weather, we are not even one week into Summer! There is certainly potential in the models for some warm or seriously warm days yet this month, or there may not be. This June is already proving very difficult to forecast more than a few days ahead and just about anything is possible over the next few weeks.

Thelonious Monk

Yeah I recall many years we've had decent Aprils and Mays with everyone getting set up for a great bbq summer only for a few months of washout to ensue. Ah it isn't even that bad out today, at least it's not that dark and isn't bucketing down, not the kind of weather that would stop you from enjoying the outdoors anyway if you wanted to go for a hike or something (which I can't do because of restrictions!).

Gonzo

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Yeah I recall many years we've had decent Aprils and Mays with everyone getting set up for a great bbq summer only for a few months of washout to ensue. Ah it isn't even that bad out today, at least it's not that dark and isn't bucketing down, not the kind of weather that would stop you from enjoying the outdoors anyway if you wanted to go for a hike or something (which I can't do because of restrictions!).

Weather today isn't that bad, it is dissapointing and feels worse than it is because we have become so used to days on end of blue skies and warm temperatures. Even the cool spell at the beginning of May was rather pleasant with plenty of sunshine once we got May the 1st out of the way. We have to make it through this Saturday first and once we into Sunday afternoon, I feel we will be turning a corner and will see an improving situation overall.

endainoz

It's not really a topic for a weather forum to be going in about farming but there needs to be a bit more said about it I feel. The water conservation idea is a bit tricky, it's not recommended to keep water for horticulture in say an IBC tank for more than a week. Too much of a risk of e coli developing from algae forming due to stagnant water.

The whole countries water system is horrendously out of date with a huge amount of leaks. The idea they have is to pump it from the Shannon instead of fixing said leaks, a ludicrous idea imo.

A practical way to take a great amount of pressure off the system would be to have all households the chance to avail of a grant to make a rain water collection system for toilets and other non drinking water applications.

We're still not used to drought conditions in Ireland, (though I do reckon they'll be more frequent in future) but warmer places are used to using irrigation and such technology. I wouldn't really agree with that approach however. A better way would be to promote soil health overall with crop diversity and building top soil. Better soil retains water more and releases it when needed. It also builds up humus in the soil which is important for aiding carbon sequesteration.

The hope is that the new CAP reform will cover a lot of these issues.

new2tri19

It certainly feels like the weather is better in May than June each year would be interesting to see statistics.

compsys

Gonzo wrote: »

The real issue is not the lack of rain but the lack of planning. Between local authorities and the farmers themselves, they do nothing to conserve water in order to have it at the ready when they need it the most in times like this. Other countries do a fairly decent job of conserving water but we don't do any of it here. Every 2 to 3 years we get a fairly lengthy dry spell and we have this problem every time. We live in the wettest country in Europe and receive enough rain throughout the year to have a perfect supply of water all the year around, if it was conserved. Thankfully it doesn't rain continuously for 12 months of the year every year, but for the few dry months we do get a bit of planning, forward thinking and water conservation would go along way!

Rome, New York, Sydney and Dallas all receive more rain than Dublin. Rainfall in the east, at around 700 to 800mm a year is on a par with Lisbon.

It’s different in the West. But in the east where over a million live the weather is far drier than people think.

Slashermcguirk

That’s mad, my sister lived in Edinburgh for 3 years and found the weather atrocious !

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I spent a year in Edinburgh and it barely rained at all, but I believe Glasgow, even though it's only an hour away, is far wetter

Donegal Storm

compsys wrote: »

Rome, New York, Sydney and Dallas all receive more rain than Dublin. Rainfall in the east, at around 700 to 800mm a year is on a par with Lisbon.

It’s different in the West. But in the east where over a million live the weather is far drier than people think.

In continental and Mediterranean climates a lot of the rain outside of winter is short lived thundery downpours though. In Ireland we tend to get light drizzly rain throughout the year so I would guess the actual time spent with rain falling is much higher here. Evaporation rate would also be a lot lower with the cooler and cloudier days so any rain that does fall stays in the ground for longer.

SouthWesterly

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

You're already polluting the waterways. And wildlife in Ireland mostly suffers from farmers not lack of water. Agriculture is the biggest polluter of waterways in Ireland, oh and not all of us eat beef so you're not putting food on my table.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/farming-pollution-sees-water-quality-in-ireland-deteriorate-1.3715715

So you don't eat meat but how about the veg or do you import all that from far flung places?

Oscar Bravo

Todays rather dismal maximum temperatures

Phoenix Park 17.9 degrees
Dublin Airport 17.4
Grange 16.9
Mount Dillon 16.5

Down the very bottom Knock Airport with a cool 11.8 degrees

sryanbruen

That’s far better than most days last June 😂

Oscar Bravo

sryanbruen wrote: »

That’s far better than most days last June ��

Very true, I remember the June bank holiday last year. wash out and blustery to.

Gonzo

Oscar Bravo wrote: »

Very true, I remember the June bank holiday last year. wash out and blustery to.

The first day of June last year wasn't too bad, think we got to about 19C. From the 2nd to the 17th of June it was basically 9 to 14C everyday here in Meath, several of those days were wet from dawn to dusk with rain coming down in sheets some days combined with strong north-easterly winds, it really was awful. We kept our fire going every evening all through Spring and on into the summer and didn't stop lighting it till about the 22nd of June.

The 3rd week of June looked like we were finally going to get some properly warm weather, we had a plume move up over us from the continent with +16 or +17C uppers. We got the warm uppers but the easterly wind was curtains for any warm weather here and temperatures barely rose to 18C during this plume which added insult to injury after several weeks of very cool and wet weather. Once the failed plume moved out of the way and we went into 'cooler' westerlies and temperatures actually improved into the final days of the month where we finally had high teens to low 20's. June 2019 will take some serious work to be beaten, it was a train wreck of a month.

Thelonious Monk

SouthWesterly wrote: »

So you don't eat meat but how about the veg or do you import all that from far flung places?

Fingal isn't that far away

Farmer2017

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Fingal isn't that far away

How do you think that grown????? It needs water also and needs it worse than grass

Thelonious Monk

Farmer2017 wrote: »

How do you think that grown????? It needs water also and needs it worse than grass

You're not much of a farmer if you don't know it takes a lot more water and land to produce a kg of meat than it does veg.

Farmer2017

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Fingal isn't that far away

How do you think that grown????? It needs water also and needs it worse than grass

Oscar Bravo

A cool bright and breezy morning here in Castlebar. Dry for the moment but cloud bubbling up

compsys

Donegal Storm wrote: »

In continental and Mediterranean climates a lot of the rain outside of winter is short lived thundery downpours though. In Ireland we tend to get light drizzly rain throughout the year so I would guess the actual time spent with rain falling is much higher here. Evaporation rate would also be a lot lower with the cooler and cloudier days so any rain that does fall stays in the ground for longer.

Of course. I'm not saying Dublin's weather is better overall than those cities. It's not imo.

But we're talking about water restrictions and access to water. In which case 700mm of rainfall is the same amount no matter where or how it falls really.

Irish people seem to think that because our 700mm/800mm is spread out over so many days that it's more than the 700mm or so that falls elsewhere in sunnier climates. It's not.

The point still stands that in terms of water falling from the sky that we can capture for drinking etc, we get far less than a lot of other cities. In Dublin at least.

Oscar Bravo

Could get a rumble or two of thunder today. High cloud tops popping up