“STORM Bert put the cattle in” – that’s how North Galway weather man, Brendan Geraghty, summed up the great outdoors for the 11th month of 2024.

Over the roughly 48 period from Friday night, November 22nd to the following Saturday night, he recorded rainfall of almost biblical-proportions that led to widespread flooding in Galway and across the West of Ireland.

His rainfall total for that period measured 2.74 inches (almost 70mms) and came in two barrages – heaviest from 2am to 7am on the Saturday morning (1.54 inches) and later that evening (8pm to 11pm) when he collected 1.2 inches in his goblet.

“It certainly was one of the most concentrated and intense periods of rainfall that I have ever come across and it accounted for over two thirds of the entire rainfall total for the month of November.

“Storm Bert put in the cattle – no doubt about that – but before that we had enjoyed a really dry and growthy two-and-a-half week period through the first half of November.

“Up until Bert, most farmers had their stock outdoors with really good grass growth due to the mild weather while field conditions were also holding up very well. However, in one night, the storm changed all that,” Brendan Geraghty told the Farming Tribune.

He added that it had been one of the best autumns for farmers in decades with cattle outdoors well into November which would be a great help in terms of fodder stocks and reserves over the coming Winter and Spring periods.

His findings are mirrored in the Met Éireann official weather summary for November ’24 which described the month as ‘mild, dry for most, and dull’.

Although we had a mini cold snap for a few days from November 19, overall temperatures for the month were between 0.4°C and 1.5°C above the long-term-average (LTA), according to the Met Éireann report.

Pictured: Brendan Geraghty: ‘Bert put in the cattle’.