During the IFA drought farm visits, Alan O’Reilly, who is well known online as Carlow Weather, explains how the lack of rainfall has led to the severe drought.
“Oakpark weather station in Carlow has only had just under 4mm of rain for the total of July and the first ten days of August and there has been nothing since. You’re talking about six weeks of very little rain. Given the fact we hit 30 degrees again yesterday, with the evaporation anything that did fall is gone.
“The forecast, the models keep showing a chance of rain, but it keeps slipping that little bit further north west and west. And that’s why Carlow is the centre in terms of soil moisture deficit at 93mm now.”
The good news is there is rain due to arrive in Carlow on Monday, but Alan admits the amount is not looking great.
“We might get 10/15mm in Carlow, maybe 20mm best case scenario but some weather models are showing as little as 5mm,” he adds.
Continuous weather cycles
With climate change Alan anticipates we are going to see more extreme weather.
“If you look at the hydrological year from October to September the rainfall is actually normal. But the problem is it’s coming heavier at certain times and then not coming at all which is obviously causing the issue we have here.”
Watch the full interview with Alan here:
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