Summer 2023 - General Discussion

Hope you didn't lose any money, your right it's just miserable when this wet, hope you get a chance to go again before they are back to school.

I grew up on a farm. Farmers do store water but the demand is significant. Especially for dairy.

Under normal summer conditions you would typically see cows consuming 30-50 litres of water per day when at grass.

When combined with higher than average temperatures you can see water consumption increase to as much as 70 litres per day. 

Also the grass essentially stopped growing in June - even in my garden. Farmers were struggling. That said, the grass growth in July was impressive.

Farmers do store water for drinking - that generally isn't a problem, it's just the slow down in grass growth that creates problems - there's enough to eat but milk production will go down on dairy farms and there isn't enough grass to harvest for feed for the winter months. Other countries don't stock nearly as many cattle as we do - you could drive for hundreds of miles in Spain and not see enough grass to feed even one cow. In other places like the US, they keep cattle in giant feedlots and feed them milled ration - they don't graze like in Ireland.

Anyway, the opposite problem is happening now! - land in many places is too wet to travel on which is hampering harvesting of silage and other crops and also too wet for cattle to walk on - many farms are housing their cattle until things dry up a bit.

Raining.

Galway.

This July is a complete washout. I have a small farm and am struggling to get work done here in Meath. Tillage crops look black in the fields and second cut silage is now behind so the contractor is going to be under a lot of pressure.

Miserable kids and cattle, cancelled outdoor events, wet parks and playgrounds, drooping clotheslines, wet bouncy castles, grey skies, floods, puddles, mucky gaps,wet heavy silage bales and black rotten crops,wet football matches and kiddies football practice, dark chilly evenings. There's July 2023 in a nutshell.

Is this going to be the norm?

182mm of rain in Sligo so far.

Well above the previous high I had of 154mm. Still a few mm left before August attempts to outWET it. However there are 3 or 4 runs now that have shown higher pressure around August 10th.

Going to South of England so maybe there High will hang around. Not a fan of heat myself or the kids but if it were 22 to 25c that would be perfect.

Will probably be 35c in England though if High sits over us.

Dunsaughlin is right beside Dublin, how come it gets way more rain than Dublin? Is Dublin in some kind of own microclimate? Why does it get significantly less rain than anywhere else.

I noticed this myself so many times, the second you leave Dublin, it starts lashing.

Gonzo on Sat we were heading to Emerald Park and lovely blue skies in NCD.

Had the kids plastered in suncream before I left all delighted with ourselves then literally as we crossed into Meath big black clouds and drizzle when we got out of car.

Well I was giving out stink, but thankfully it did turn out a relatively nice day( ha for this July) and we were lucky with some very heavy but short showers during the day.

That second paragraph is like something from a Patrick Kavanagh poem. I enjoyed in a perverse kind of way 😁

Taking of fruit, what is with the strawberries this year? The varieties in the shops are not great and I've tried everywhere, Supervalu, Dunnes, Tesco, Aldi etc. I never remember a year when they tasted so bad.

Just not nice, only ones I did have that were amazing was out in a little shop one day in NCD supplied by local farmer, my son keeps asking me when are we getting those "real' strawberries again.

Looks like getting sunny now from the west for the evening...

About to head off on my bike again in Dublin and guess what, its raining! What a awful month July has been - never been so sick of getting wet on the bike

Black dark here in SCD. I can feel the low pressure in my head.

I don't mind this weather so much, not a lot you can do about it, but I really feel sorry for those with young kids, trying to keep them entertained in the holliers must be hard. And I went for a rainy walk earlier, the rain is not the issue for me, but the feckin wind would knock you over. Then I just came home after ten minutes of buffeting.

The gloomy faces all around tell it all.

Bye bye July 2023, I will not miss you one bit.