Potential Drought conditions?

I used to have about 2 weeks of rain water in tank's (I do use a good bit in the garden) the last few years I've ran out on occasions, so this year I upgraded tanks to about 3 weeks of water for this year. and im out as of 3 days ago...I honestly don't remember have many issues over the previous 10 years.

Talking to alot of gardeners they really at looking at different plants which handle the dry spels ..(never thought I'd hear that in Ireland) sorry to go off topic but this spring was amazing for plant growth :) some over night rain in the next week or so would add icing to the cake, thunder storm would be the cheery too

Its great. 25 days now since a drop of rain here in North East Kildare. Have a paddling pool out for kids so when i empty it i use it to water grass and flowers. Not wasting a drop.

I cant remember a spell like this. The good thing is it isnt too hot either. Just perfect really.

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.

and we're off

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

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Yup a stream of rain coming up from the Southeast so that line will see at least 10mm

Rain all day likely in Sligo just like Met Eireann didn't say....AGAIN

First rain in 3 weeks but only a tiny trace amount. More fell to the west.

So with 26 days (as more than 0.2mm has fallen today), Dublin Airport had its longest absolute drought since 1955.

Will probably see them form my place as they pass by😡