A few wintry blasts as Spring beckons

Country Living with Francis Farragher

It was a bit like the story of waiting for ages at the shelter for a bus to arrive, and then two of them arrive together. After the most benign of winters, where we hardly had a serious gale blowing or a really heavy downpour of rain, two storms arrived in the space of five days, giving us a less than gentle reminder that the winter is not quite over year.

From a West of Ireland point of view, Doris was probably the more severe of the two, crossing our shores on the Wednesday night/Thursday morning of February 22 and 23, leaving well over 50,000 homes without power across many western and north-western counties.

Normally, forecasters err on the side of caution when a storm risk is imminent but, if anything, Doris was probably a tad more severe than we expected, with gales coming close to the 90mph mark in parts of the north-west, leading to a lot of transport problems on the ground, at sea and in the air.

From October, through to last Wednesday night, we really had led a charmed existence in terms of avoiding anything by way of extremes either in terms of wind, temperature or rainfall.

Indeed over the weekend, it was interesting to listen to FBD boss, Fiona Muldoon, comparing this winter with the one of 2015/2016 in terms of weather related insurance claims.

In 2015/16, it really was a case of one major weather event after the next as the storms came rolling in, many of them remembered more for the volume of their rainfall deposits rather than high winds.

Damage running into tens of millions of euro was caused to houses across the country, leading to some families having to abandon their homes, after one of our wettest ever winters.

We don’t need any reminding of the flooding disasters that ensued adding to the financial troubles of FBD at the time but now a benign winter has had a hugely positively influence on the balance sheet of the insurance company

Since last September – a particularly painful month for the grain growers across the western region – each of the last five months, October to February inclusive, have had rainfall amounts of well under 100mms. (roughly four inches).

Last Sunday – and especially the first half of it – was something of a shock to the system with the persistent and heavy rain across most parts leading to spot flooding on the roads and fields.

It was little wonder with the Athenry and mid-Galway area taking a particular pounding. On Sunday last, the Met. Éireann station in Athenry recorded a rainfall amount of 21.8mms. (almost an inch) with our wettest little pocket of the winter so far arriving between 9am and 11am.

To read Francis’ column in full, please see this week’s Connacht Tribune.