IT’S turning out to be the real year of two halves – very dry for the first five months and then extremely wet from June to November inclusive.

Overflowing rivers and streams as well as flooded callows and low-lying fields, have been the main features of the West of Ireland landscape since late September.

Athenry has been one of the wetter locations across the country over recent months with the Met Éireann station at this location, recording 194.3mms [7.6 inches] of rainfall through the 30-days of November.

That followed on from rainfall totals at the Athenry station of 145.8mms [5.7 inches ]in October and 143.7mms [5.6 inches ] in September.

According to the Met Éireann weather report for the month of November, ‘the dominant theme’ was the arrival of mobile Atlantic systems, blowing in regular pulses of rain.

We also had a somewhat unusual storm arrival from the Canary Islands on Friday, November 14th, when Claudia [named by the Spanish Met Service] struck Ireland, bringing some very heavy falls of rain.

A mini cold snap arrived around the third week of the month – on Friday, November 21st, the lowest air temperature in the country was recorded at the Mount Dillon station in Roscommon when the mercury dropped down to –4.5°C.

It was a month of real rainfall contrasts for the so-called sunny south-east, with the Johnstown Castle station in Wexford having a whopping 237.2mms [10.7 inches] of precipitation – by contrast, ‘up-the-road’ in Carlow’s Oak Park, the lowest monthly rainfall was recorded at 110mms [4.3 inches].

While November mightn’t have felt like a bright month, Met Éireann reported that sunshine totals for the month were above the long-term average at all stations across the country.

Closer to home, Abbeyknockmoy weather recorder, Brendan Geraghty, gathered 7.1 inches [180mms ] of rainfall in his goblet for November with a particularly wet start to the month – 2.25 inches [57mms ] in the first four days.

It was his wettest November since 2015, while his monthly totals for the October-November in 2025 were almost double what they were for the same period last year.

“Land everywhere is either saturated or waterlogged with rivers and streams full to capacity. The only consolation from a farming point of view is that nearly all cattle are housed this time of year, and we’re all hoping for a drier Spring,” said Brendan Geraghty.

He said that the wet trend was continuing on through the first eight days of December with a total of 2.51 inches falling while all of the forecasts were indicating more heavy rain to follow over the coming week or so.

Despite the cold third week of November, overall temperatures for the month of 7.8°C were 0.4°C above the long-term average.

Pictured: Brendan Geraghty: A very wet end to the year.