Potential Drought conditions?

pauldry

A lot of dying grass beginning to appear now. 50mm SMD in Sligo id reckon. Think it was 90mm one year so that's the lowest I ever remember or is it when it gets to 70mm that's it. What was it in 1976? That's the brown year. And 2018 too.

John.Icy

Is it not common knowledge how poor our water infrastructure is? It's definitely not a secret I would have thought.

Our water network is old and we lose nearly 40% of our water daily through leaks (2022 figure), and that's the figure after huge investment into the network in recent years already. In terms of storage/reservoir capacity, I'm not overly familiar but from recent years, I'm assuming it's not super and any prolonged dry weather leaves us on the verge of issues. They are further investing billions into the system to reduce leakage to 25% by 2030, we're late to the game but they are starting the process of investing in it.

Add prolonged dry weather AND our poor infrastructure together and it's why we are so quick to hear of hosepipe bans etc. There seems to be a lot of surprise every year at how drinking water/domestic water works and why it is so precarious here most of the time. You don't drink untreated rain water nor untreated water from rivers, so it matters not a jot what falls from the sky. If we can't treat it all then it's not available for domestic supply.

It also wasn't a wet winter. Drier than normal at all Met Eireann stations. Exceptionally dry for many in February (from mid-January on basically). March was very wet, but you'd imagine a lot of that rain was absorbed by drying land and not as much run off to be collected in rivers etc. as the March total might suggest. I can't find history of the soil moisture deficits on the Met Eireann site to track them over winter into Spring to see how they were going. Did we ever reach actual soil saturation (-10mm)? And if we did, for how long? I'm also not able to follow the water levels websites to see how this has been the last few months. Either way, we really have not heard a lot from Irish Water lately so I'm guessing there's not a huge issue. As my previous post highlighted, different kind of droughts. I'm sure it's feasible to have climatological and agricultural drought without automatically running into hydrological drought.

A lot of Ireland really is not that wet, at least where a large % of the people are. Outside of the Med, throw a dart at a map of Europe and Dublin and some other eastern coastal areas probably get less or similar to them. We just don't get the sun and warmth that makes wetter climates more palatable elsewhere. Somewhere like Albania or Montenegro gets far more rain than the East (or the West!), but you'd chose their summer every time if you like sun and heat. Yes the West/NW/SW is wetter by a decent chunk than the rest of the country, but as far as I'm aware we have no bountiful surplus of water. Lots of money still to be invested and we really need to improve reservoir capacity and get leak loss down to 15% or less. Dublin and the East are going to be bailed out in the coming times by the Shannon too as we won't be able to fulfil our own water needs due to the booming population.

Echo the sentiments on rapidly improving rainwater harvesting to assist throughout the year and remove the reliance on potable water for everything. Peoples plants for example would only LOVE if they had lovely rainwater all year water instead of treated drinkable water. We've a lot of work to do, especially if we are heading into territory where long dry spells are going to be more common.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120675239#Comment_120675239

You can throw in the ongoing failure to reign in water pollution from various sources

Thelonious Monk

https://m.independent.ie/farming/news/ireland-facing-an-agricultural-drought-by-the-end-of-the-week/a157796051.html

and we're off

ednwireland

Certainly up here in the NW all our efforts are to get rid of water not to keep it so not surprising we run out after a couple of weeks of dry weather.

esposito

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120678846#Comment_120678846

You just know that the rain is on its way from this weekend now that that article has been published 😆

Chris_5339762

Soil moisture has now dropped to 14% at my station in Cobh. It was down to 13% last year during the heatwave. So we're there already!

cobham

It seems like over 4 wks since any rain here in Dublin. Waterbutts had to be disconnected in deluges of March/April now near empty from watering garden.

AnFearCeart

Very dry. From Latest Farming Commentary - Met Éireann - The Irish Meteorological Service

The whole country could take 40mm to 65mm of rain and the ground would soak it all up.

JanuarySnowstor

And we could well get that tally by next weekend, in the form of thunder showers. I'm exaggerating but an end to the current drought is now looking certain!

pauldry

Don't be so negative! Itl rain every day from June 10th onwards. That was always the day and still is. Drought will be over by week 3 of June. That's how to be negative JS

spookwoman

Stared to notice leaves are dropping on the tree. Not many so far

DownByTheGarden

Grass and plants look no different to me than they do any other year. Its normal in Ireland to get no or very little rain for a month and thne loads of rain for a month. Since I was a child we have been getting weather patterns like this. We have never had a drought. Maybe the definition of a drought, but we have never not had any water

JanuarySnowstor

Any rainfall over the weekend is looking very patchy. In general the dry weather continues right up to end of following week. Also I don't get the thunder potential, the showers showing on gfs run lack intensity

pad199207

I’d call this “breakdown” a breakdown of the blue skies more so than anything else.

If anything it’s going to get much warmer and some areas will continue their dry spell days tally

A welcome addition will be the milder evenings

esposito

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120684942#Comment_120684942

Exactly.

The word ‘breakdown’ way overused on this forum. It’s almost as if some folk are desperate for one. It’s gonna get warmer, more humid with the odd intense shower.

Gusser09

Looking forward to the conditions over the next 7 days now. Is it just me or are people not as invested in this as they were during the "cold snap" this winter? 4 days of minus conditions and the place was hopping. We are now at 25 days in a lot of areas without rain and barely a word about it.

Lot's of patches of grass under severe pressure at the moment just looking out my window.

We must be getting in to record territory at this stage regarding the lack of rain? Sorry can't be arsed googling.

nacho libre

Can't say I agree about the warmer and muggy evenings as they are much harder to work in. I agree Gussor09 this had been a very interesting period of weather

sryanbruen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120685063#Comment_120685063

Not really that much of a surprise as winter garners more attention due to a variety of reasons, not least because we're all stuck in whilst it's usually miserable outside compared to summer which despite moans unless it's an atrocity like 2012 or 2020, much of the time we can at least get out and get up to stuff.

.Donegal.

Slightly confused by the latest farming update. Rain or showers most likely in southern counties this weekend yet they have the lowest rainfall totals of just 2 to 5mm.

However, there will be a subtle change to the weather pattern this weekend with the increased likelihood of rain or showers at times, especially in southern counties. Further showers are expected next week with thunderstorms likely. Overall, rainfall amounts will likely range from 2 to 5mm in the south of the country to 20 to 40mm in parts of the west and northeast (10 to 80% of the average for the time of year). However, localised areas could see more in thunderstorms.

Soil moisture deficits (SMDs) across all soil types currently range from 45 to 55mm over northern parts of the country and 55 to 70mm elsewhere with growth becoming increasingly restricted. Despite intermittent rain and showers expected from the weekend onwards, SMDs will still increase further, generally by 5 to 10mm over the coming week with drought or near drought conditions in parts of the southeast.

JCX BXC

Yeah very oddly written, seems to be a few typos. Only 2-5mm in the south, and then 20-40mm in the west and north east? Makes little sense.

pauldry

Maybe there'll be one or two thunderstorms in the West with local domnpours of in excess of 20mm but other places with zero.

Also rain in South might be misty. Yr.no is giving Sligo 5mm in next 6 days and over 20c all the days.

M.T. Cranium

Current GFS guidance on future rainfall shows a gradual decrease in drought conditions from this weekend to the end of next week and more substantial rainfalls in less reliable second week, totals of about 30-40 mm in south and west, to 70-90 mm in parts of Ulster. Those amounts would not entirely eliminate dry soil conditions in some parts of the southwest, and would be around normal June rainfalls further north.

Also hot and dry in my location (south central BC Canada), has not rained much all spring around here and temperatures running near record warm all of May and so far into June. About 35 C outside now.

nacho libre

So based off current guidance it looks like the drought could well continue for another week in some places. The showers at the weekend could be hit and miss, so some places may possibly escape with little to no rain over the next 6 or 7 days.

Gusser09

A month in now in North East Kildare without rain. Mad stuff. That's a serious dry spell. A decent spill would do the world of good at this stage.

KingdomRushed

It has been an epically dry spell and if it were not for the very wet 2 months that preceded it there would be an agricultural crisis at this point. The drought conditions certainly ease from tomorrow, in my experience the weather models only ever underestimate convective rain and slow moving showers, given the showery regime is to embed for the foreseeable with some quite beefy totals appearing on the GFS now I would say the crisis is averted, even if some localised areas remain quite dry. Looking forward to a change myself, especially as it is to stay warm, no driving atlantic washout that haunted many an Irish summer of the past

SlowBlowin

Our well (Kerry) ran dry about a week ago, many in the village with the same issue. Each day now starts with filling 24 x 5l water bottles from the stream. most used in the garden. The ground is so dry I think it will take a lot of soaking before the wells come back online.

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120695875#Comment_120695875

You have me worried now. A well is my only source of water on the stacks. If it runs dry I'm screwed.

Needing rain badly.

adocholiday

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120696572#Comment_120696572

I'm also on a well and have been doing a lot of reading on how worried I should be! I understand now that it depends on how deep your well is and the general geology of the area. If your well is closer to the surface then it will be more susceptible to rainfall conditions (i.e. dries up quickly in drought, fills up quickly with rain). If your well has been drilled deep into the water table then drought shouldn't be as much of a concern, but it also depends on the size of the reservoir in the ground and the make up of the ground around it. Water fills the reservoir with precipitation filtering through the rock but also other underground sources so some wells don't run dry at all. There's no easy way to tell though, unless you were there when the bore was made.

pauldry

It's raining in lot of places now. Might help.