Drought/Low Rainfall Watch - Summer 2018

pauldry · 25-06-2018 9:53am

Ive only cut my grass once this year and that was 19th May.

Usually by now Id have cut it about 6 times.

However due to severe cold restricting growth up to May and now just 2 wet days in 2 months there is absolutely no need to cut it as garden has stopped growing

Oneiric 3 · 25-06-2018 4:26pm

National mean total over the last 30 days (since May 26th) is standing at just 31.4mm, which equates to just 45% of 1981-2010 average for the period. I will do a full individual Met station breakdown of the stats later on.

Info from Met Éireann.

SleetAndSnow · 25-06-2018 5:28pm

Grass has gone very orange in Cork City, with some of the pathway grass totally barren looking. My own garden is pretty patchy.

Irish_rat · 25-06-2018 6:54pm

pauldry wrote: »

Ive only cut my grass once this year and that was 19th May.

Usually by now Id have cut it about 6 times.

However due to severe cold restricting growth up to May and now just 2 wet days in 2 months there is absolutely no need to cut it as garden has stopped growing

:eek:

SleetAndSnow · 25-06-2018 11:39pm

Both cork councils cut the east today, it’s gone nearly totally yellow now.

sryanbruen · 26-06-2018 10:31am

Sunshine totals (hours) for Irish stations from the 21st-25th June 2018.

Dublin Airport now whizzes into first place with Cork Airport and Belmullet second place.

Our stations still good for sunshine totals yesterday in spite of the high cloud.

Station|21 Jun|22 Jun|23 Jun|24 Jun|25 Jun|Total
Belmullet|12.7|13.6|14.2|15.8|14.0|70.3
Casement Aerodrome|14.1|15.8|13.4|14.8|10.7|68.8
Cork Airport|13.2|15.7|14.8|14.9|11.7|70.3
Dublin Airport|12.9|15.6|14.4|15.6|12.5|71.0
Gurteen|8.1|14.7|15.5|15.9|11.0|65.2
Johnstown Castle|2.9|15.8|15.5|5.6|14.0|53.8
Knock Airport|10.8|10.9|13.7|16.0|12.6|64.0
Malin Head|12.7|10.9|12.6|15.2|14.8|66.2
Shannon Airport|13.3|15.1|15.6|15.2|10.5|69.7
Valentia Observatory|12.3|15.3|15.5|15.5|11.1|69.7

Data comes from Met Éireann.

MJohnston · 26-06-2018 1:28pm

Some water levels on the east coast, Liffey at Leixlip just dipping below the 50th percentile:

And the Dodder:

Nothing abnormal at either just yet, but you can see in both the almost complete lack of Dublin-area rainfall in the last few months. I think the catchment area is probably keeping these levels up, for now.

pauldry · 26-06-2018 1:48pm

thats great info. where u get it

MJohnston · 26-06-2018 1:58pm

pauldry wrote: »

thats great info. where u get it

You can get country-wide levels of certain rivers via http://waterlevel.ie/

Then when you click on an individual station, pick "Water Level for past 5 weeks".

When you do that, some of the stations will have an external link to 'view historical data', where you'll be able to see much older values than 5 weeks (some of them don't have this).

Danno · 26-06-2018 2:07pm

Interesting - ours is below 50% for the past five weeks! http://waterlevel.ie/0000015005/0001/

snowstreams · 26-06-2018 2:18pm

yes waterlevel.ie is a great site.
I often swim in the corrib in Galway and I keep an eye on the temp here:
https://waterlevel.ie/0000030098/0002/week/

Its touching 22c now at the surface of the river.
Feels like its getting close to swimming pool temperature there now.

MJohnston · 26-06-2018 2:21pm

Percentiles are difficult things to figure out or explain - I believe the 50th percentile on that chart means that about 50% of the time, the water level is higher than it, and the other 50% of the time it is lower. 95th percentile I think means that 95% of the time the water level is higher than it, 5% of the time it is lower.

So being below 50 percentile is not necessarily out of the ordinary, I think it's somewhere around 80 percentile and below where things are substantially different from average.

Could be wrong about that though, as I say, my brain hurts when it comes to percentiles.

One thing to say is that percentiles do not equate to a percentage of the river level.

RobertKK · 26-06-2018 2:43pm

My nearest river on that is at 95th percentile, it looks it too.

snowstreams · 26-06-2018 2:47pm

RobertKK wrote: »

My nearest river on that is at 95th percentile, it looks it too.

Does it have any trout in it?
If so they would be in trouble with that low level and Im sure high temperatures too.
I remember seeing trout die in some streams back in 1995.

BlackandGreen · 26-06-2018 7:02pm

What are we even looking at on those charts? Bit hard to understand for the average person.
Is there a way to just see how many days water are left, or how much water is in the local reservoir?

RobertKK · 26-06-2018 7:33pm

snowstreams wrote: »

Does it have any trout in it?
If so they would be in trouble with that low level and Im sure high temperatures too.
I remember seeing trout die in some streams back in 1995.

It does. Not sure how they are doing

Oneiric 3 · 26-06-2018 7:52pm

Rainfall totals for the last 30, 15 and 7 days at a select number of stations. I will defo include more stations in this list soon but gathering data in this weather, which is driving me nuts as it is, is proving to be a task.

Very low totals now in the eastern stations and in north Cork.

Data: Met Eireann.

Oneiric 3 · 26-06-2018 9:13pm

Additional table showing more rainfall data (up to yesterday) at other Met Eireann stations:

Gaoth Laidir · 26-06-2018 9:22pm

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Additional table showing more rainfall data (up to yesterday) at other Met Eireann stations:

I'm struggling to remember when it rained here at Casement in the last 7 days...

SleetAndSnow · 26-06-2018 9:25pm

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Additional table showing more rainfall data (up to yesterday) at other Met Eireann stations:

The last rain I remember in Cork is a slight shower on the evening of the 16th of June which was very lightr only around 0.2mm. Since then I can't really think of anything.

Oneiric 3 · 26-06-2018 9:27pm

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

I'm struggling to remember when it rained here at Casement in the last 7 days...

From Met Éireann for the 20th:

The day before reported a 0.1mm (probably from dew or fog) bringing the total up to 1.5mm for the period.

Artane2002 · 26-06-2018 9:30pm

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

I'm struggling to remember when it rained here at Casement in the last 7 days...

I remember a wet morning here in D5 on the 20th so it could be that.

EDIT: Yep, it was the 20th as confirmed by Oneiric 3

Gaoth Laidir · 26-06-2018 9:33pm

Artane2002 wrote: »

I remember a wet morning here in D5 on the 20th so it could be that.

EDIT: Yep, it was the 20th as confirmed by Oneiric 3

Ah yes, I remember now coming out to a wet car one morning alright.

thomasj · 26-06-2018 10:25pm

Netweather calling showers-moderate rain for Dublin on Sunday.

Time will tell how accurate and that's subject to change .

Mobhi1 · 26-06-2018 10:31pm

Met Éireann also - There's a signal for rain later in the day(Saturday) or in to the night, with rain or showers likely for Sunday. The country in general.

hinault · 27-06-2018 1:13pm

Last few days I've been deliberately harvesting used-used water to hydrate the grass and plants in the garden.

Simple things like filing a basin of water to clean cutlery, cups, plates etc. Instead of pouring the used water down the drain, use it to water plants and grass in your garden instead.

pauldry · 27-06-2018 1:26pm

Even the long grass is dying now:(

Not that I care but poor farmers and livestock

MJohnston · 27-06-2018 1:28pm

pauldry wrote: »

Even the long grass is dying now:(

Not that I care but poor farmers and livestock

Ha, you might want to reword your post slightly!

Gaoth Laidir · 27-06-2018 1:53pm

pauldry wrote: »

Even the long grass is dying now:(

Not that I care but poor farmers and livestock

From Met Éireann's Farming outlook this morning. The poor spuds...

Field Conditions

The land is very solid at the moment. Soil moisture deficits are over 60 mm across the east, south and a good deal of the midlands; in the north and northwest there around 30mm. Grass growth is practical non-existent and the potato crop can only survive with the intervention of artifical watering. The expected rainfall at the weekend may bring some relief.

sryanbruen · 27-06-2018 5:09pm

Sunshine totals (hours) for Irish stations from the 21st-26th June 2018.

Valentia Observatory is in first place now with Shannon Airport in second place.

A good enough sunny day again in general yesterday once the cloud cleared.

Station|21 Jun|22 Jun|23 Jun|24 Jun|25 Jun|26 Jun|Total
Belmullet|12.7|13.6|14.2|15.8|14.0|11.2|81.5
Casement Aerodrome|14.1|15.8|13.4|14.8|10.7|9.8|78.6
Cork Airport|13.2|15.7|14.8|14.9|11.7|11.8|82.1
Dublin Airport|12.9|15.6|14.4|15.6|12.5|11.3|82.3
Gurteen|8.1|14.7|15.5|15.9|11.0|12.2|77.4
Johnstown Castle|2.9|15.8|15.5|5.6|14.0|11.6|65.4
Knock Airport|10.8|10.9|13.7|16.0|12.6|10.7|74.7
Malin Head|12.7|10.9|12.6|15.2|14.8|8.4|74.6
Shannon Airport|13.3|15.1|15.6|15.2|10.5|13.3|83.0
Valentia Observatory|12.3|15.3|15.5|15.5|11.1|14.5|84.2

Data comes from Met Éireann.

Drought/Low Rainfall Watch - Summer 2018

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