For better or worse, it’s warmers days to come

Country Living with Frances Farragher

Over the past week, some of the climate change boffins have got into a bit of a tizzy as they pore through their oceans of data on weather change, with predictions from the UK that it could turn out to be their warmest ever year.

There have been a number of unusual weather events all around the world (although I’m inclined to say when wasn’t there), from the winter storms that battered our coastline earlier this year to savage droughts in the western USA as well as parts of China and South America.

Since our awful Spring of 2013 (only last year but it seems a lot further back), we seem to have won favour with the Gods in terms of two good summers in a row, with a mild enough winter sandwiched in-between.

Sometimes I’m loathe to suggest that weatherwise things are going swimmingly well for us, as it does seem to be tempting fate, and my local vet always cautions against saying that things are going too smoothly in case it could bring the mí-ádh down on top of me.

Weather does tend to be a pretty localised experience and it’s no consolation to someone on a Connemara beach in a wet day in July knowing that the sun is splitting the stones down in Wexford at the same time.

The November weather report from Met. Eireann makes for some interesting observations on local conditions with Mace Head on the western edge of Connemara, one of the driest places (well relatively speaking) in the entire country.

Rainfall at Mace Head during the 30 days of November only totalled 86.8mms. (nearly 3.5 inches) while across the county in Athenry, the rainfall figure for the same period was 139mms. or 5.5 inches.

For good chunks of the year, there was a curious pattern to the weather systems hitting our shores. Normally the low pressure come in from the Atlantic, dropping most of their rain load in the west, but on many occasions this year, systems have drifted up from the Bay of Biscay and done most of their off-loading across the east or south of the country.

Connacht also recorded a below average rainfall for November this year but this contrasted sharply with Valentia in Co. Kerry, where the rainfall for the month was 202mms., around the eight inches mark.

Anyone in the great outdoors though enjoyed the benign end to November when nearly two weeks of dry conditions allowed farmers to keep their animals outside without doing any damage to the ground, although that has changed this week, with the return of the rains.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.