According to Met office statistics Northern Ireland had recorded its wettest March on record by the 18th of the month. And the rainfall has been playing havoc with roads, sports and farmers.

A number of country lanes have become all but inpassable while fields have become flooded right across the county. A number of sporting contests have been cancelled and at the Lakeland forum a portaloo became upended and was pictured floating in a flooded area of ground.

Barry Read, who runs an Read Agri Contracts in Maguiresbridge has said that the heavy rainfall has played havoc with farming:

“The biggest problem we have is in spreading slurry. With EU regulation we are not allowed to spread slurry from the 15th of October through to the first of February. This year we had a very dry January and had we been let we would have spread slurry then. Now, you have farmers trying to spread bits and pieces now but with the weather it is just not working,” Mr. Read stated.

He went on to outline some of the other problems that farmers are facing at present:

We are definitely seeing more extreme weather events in recent years. We are getting up to six weeks of really bad wet weather when we normally would not have have anything like that. It means that animals are having to be kept inside longer. There would have been farmers who had cattle out in January this year because it was so mild but who now have the animals back inside and that means feeding them more meal which is an added expense. And it looks like it will be well into April before they are out again.”