Showing posts with label drought. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drought. Show all posts

Saturday, 20 August 2022

Rain!

End poles are braced

The heatwave finally broke a couple of days ago and we had three partial days of rain. This morning it was coming down in buckets. You can feel the earth sigh with relief. With the earth a bit softer again, Alex was able to install the braces for the end poles and cement them in. 

We lost two vines to the heat and drought, both Chardonnay. I will root cuttings from the five year old vines. It seems that just sticking them in the ground works just fine. Forget about rootstock. The other vines have suffered a bit -- a few shrivelled leaves here and there -- but overall not too bad. I'm just glad we didn't have the conditions they had on the continent. Horrible sudden storms, over 220 kph winds, destructive hail, and torrential rain tore from Spain across the Med and into Italy and Austria. The rest of the continent is suffering from drought and heat -- the Danube is down 5 feet, Lake Como is unrecognizable. Many crops were destroyed by either drought or storms. It is feeling apocalyptic. 

Meanwhile, our grapes are now increasing in size and the Rondo continues to turn red. The Pinot Noir are still tiny and fuzzy, I'm not certain what that means. I hope it's not fungus, but the dry weather would indicate not. The Chardonnay have a few clusters, so we will mix whites this year. The Solaris are coming along but not in huge quantities as expected. All in all, it's pretty remarkable. 

I told our story to a woman from Harvard named Sinéad O'Connor, who comes home to Ireland and writes for The Currency. She is writing about the vineyards in Ireland. She heard about us from Colm McCan who teaches about wine at the Ballymaloe cookery school and has a small vineyard in East Cork close to Cloyne. The word is getting out. I guess now we need to start making serious wine. 

View over what looks like a vineyard now

View from the new picnic platform

Dead Chardonnay vine

Sun dappled leaves

View from the East

Monkey puzzle log bee hive

Rondo looking good

2 yo Pinot Noir vines bearing fruit

Chardonnay - very small

7 yo Solaris

4 yo Solaris - drought damage to leaves

More Rondo - veraison has begun!


Monday, 25 October 2021

Could the West coast drought be over?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1452473186012983297 


Torrential rains and high winds pummeled the west coast from Oregon to central California dumping record rainfall in an 'atmospheric river' causing flooding and massive problems. Sonoma and Santa Rosa counties had more than 7 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. Mt. Veeder had a whopping 10 inches of rain in 24 hours - most in #NapaValley according to the official tally. Record rainfall after record drought. Climate change is definitely here. The “bomb cyclone” is a rare meteorological event. 

I wonder what effect it will have on the vineyards. At least they had already harvested the grapes. 

One good thing, the #DixieFire has been declared 100% contained @ 963,309 acres.


Yosemite Falls roared back to life. 

But the drought ain't over yet. 


Saturday, 14 August 2021

Oregon on fire

Who would have thought that cool Oregon would be growing Albariño at the Fault Line Vineyards in the Umpqua Valley American Viticultural Area?  But this year, the heating degree units may be almost 30% higher than normal and that may be too warm for the grapes. Not only is it hot, but it also is dry this year. And they are looking at yet another record-making heatwave

The weather across the US remains unsettled and unusual. It does not appear to be a good time to be involved in agriculture in many areas of the world. 

Saturday, 7 August 2021

Rain and more rain

Clew Bay


After weeks of heat and drought, we now are getting rain and plenty of it. Yesterday, it poured buckets of rain all day. In fact, the Newport Furnace station, our closest station, reported the highest rainfall total in the country at 26.2 mm. The grapes should start getting plumper now. Hopefully, they won't get too much water. But it's not something we can control. 

Newport Furnace26.218.914.09.5 (18)17.974313.7

Station Rain MaxT MinT Sun Wind Gust Soil Global Gmin mm oCoChrKts (Km/h)Kts (Km/h)oCJ/cm^2oC

Our rainfall total for August as of the 6th has already surpassed our total for all of July and all of April and is approaching our monthly total for June. And there haven't been any tropical storms coming our way over that period either. What a strange year! 

Meanwhile, the entire west coast of North America is on fire from BC to CA and experiencing severe drought and huge water restrictions. Greece and Turkey are experiencing  huge wildfires as is Siberia. Russia mobilised the army to combat the fires. South Africa has a serious drought and are predicting day zero soon when the water in Nelson Mandela Bay provinces will dry up. I will write a post on what's happening with the vineyards specifically relative to drought and fires soon. 

The Met Eireann stats for Newport are below for reference. 

MONTHLY VALUES FOR NEWPORT UP TO 06-AUG-2021

Total rainfall in millimetres for NEWPORT

YearJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecAnnual
2021225.6147.6141.145.6113.564.159.760.3857.5
2020139.5342.8178.225.554.7164.5187.9137.9153.4228.0206.6232.72051.7
2019146.8115.0228.5100.7112.576.682.7228.9175.5160.7148.1220.61796.6
2018274.6155.686.294.370.465.958.6179.1148.3140.9172.6201.01647.5
LTA166.7126.5141.296.894.789.7100.9132.5131.5176.0170.4180.21607.1

Mean temperature in degrees Celsius for NEWPORT

YearJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecAnnual
20215.06.77.99.010.413.317.516.410.2
20207.26.06.611.012.813.814.416.013.810.59.16.110.6
20196.98.47.910.211.713.116.315.513.710.37.17.110.7
20185.94.65.59.113.116.116.115.012.410.98.38.110.5
LTA6.16.17.39.011.513.815.415.413.510.88.36.510.3

Mean 10cm soil temperature for NEWPORT at 0900 UTC

YearJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecAnnual
20213.65.06.88.210.914.317.9n/a9.6
20205.74.75.49.713.014.814.916.313.79.58.05.110.1
20196.16.16.88.912.213.816.715.713.59.46.25.610.1
20184.42.94.08.213.117.418.415.112.19.66.66.69.9
LTAn/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/a

Global Solar Radiation in Joules/cm2 for NEWPORT

YearJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecAnnual
202166201334720370456945569045488494558564245228
2020626310808245454619258476435374021540555255581848763195209326164
2019537810595213063764849884496074539537116264601740681674766313728
2018597613390252693470958446598495144834923226191712378424068335662
LTAn/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/a

Potential Evapotranspiration (mm) for NEWPORT

YearJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecAnnual
20217.622.930.762.976.370.787.814.2373.1
202017.621.935.070.291.672.966.266.442.728.113.610.4536.6
201913.421.535.460.479.078.279.562.942.829.214.814.3531.4
201816.321.835.752.088.2102.487.258.737.930.218.011.5559.9
LTAn/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/a

Evaporation (mm) for NEWPORT

YearJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecAnnual
202110.932.145.489.9111.2102.0117.219.5528.2
202022.431.951.898.9130.8104.894.392.759.138.818.113.6757.2
201917.729.552.087.3111.6112.8109.688.859.939.618.917.9745.6
201821.930.251.776.4127.4140.4120.782.253.140.622.814.9782.3
LTAn/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/a

DEGREE DAYS BELOW 15.5 DEGREE CELSIUS FOR NEWPORT

YearJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecTotal
20213252472362001677920N/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/A
2020257276275143111735531711561932911935
2019266200235165130892736671642512621892
20182983063091941045031441001472152302027

Notes on the Data

Evaporation and PE data are calculated using Penman/Monteith formulae.
The ‘LTA’ (referred to within a table) is average for the climatological long-term-average (LTA) reference period 1981-2010.
Data updated daily at Mid-day.