Post-Lorenzo

Well, we got off lucky. The vineyard suffered little damage, just some broken branches, from extra-tropical cyclone Lorenzo.  The orchard did okay, too, with just a few pears on the ground. The donkeys were not seen during the hurricane at all and we suspect they were hiding in their hollow on the north side. The winds were howling from the SE and then SW all day and all night, but the worst we got was 65 knots (120 km/hr). No damage that we could see to house or land, and our friend's boat was undamaged on our mooring.

Mace Head, at the northern corner of Galway Bay had a little less and our boat did fine in Kilrush up the Shannon River. So all in all, not too bad for the strongest hurricane (Category 5 at one stage) to come as far north and east in history. 

The donkeys have since all been accounted for. All nine came down to say Hi yesterday.

🔴 Mace head in the last hour had a gust of 108km/h and also had an average mean wind speed (10mins) of 87km/h. 🔴

🔺 The 87km/h mean speed would be under Red Warning Criteria. 🔺

Met Eireann's Red Warning Criteria;

Mean Speeds in excess of 80 km/h
Gusts Speeds in excess of 130 km/h

Obviously there was no Red Warning but just shows there may be no wind in some parts of the country but others can be much worse!

Highest Wind gust at Weather Alerts Ireland HQ was 51km/h yesterday.