A year of weather extremes for Northern Ireland
Barra Best
By Barra Best
BBC Weather
Livestock and wild animals were affected by the snow storms in March
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Northern Ireland review of 2013
It has been a remarkable year for Northern Ireland weather.
We endured the coldest spring for more than three decades, we finally enjoyed a barbecue summer, and winter storms battered the coast.
Winter hit hard in mid-January when snow led to power cuts for thousands, it delayed and cancelled flights and provided the first big test of winter for gritters.
Speaking on the day the snow hit, Colin Sykes from the Roads Service said: "We've had more than 300 staff and 132 gritters on standby.
"We have been gritting all this morning and today, and we expect to grit all through this evening and night."
The bigger snow event hit two months later in March which, incidentally, was the coldest March in 50 years.
It provided postcard scenery and lots of fun, but it also caused devastation for sheep and cattle farmers who lost thousands of animals to the elements.
Army helicopters were drafted in to deliver food to livestock.
"Farmers are nothing if not resilient and with the help of the government's fallen stock and fodder transport schemes many began to rebuild their businesses," Harry Sinclair, president of the Ulster Farmer's Union said.
"Fortunately, the weather for the rest of 2013 was much kinder to farmers. The good summer weather and mild autumn/winter has meant that harvests have been good, fodder stocks replenished, slurry spread and livestock were out in many fields well into November.
"For the most part farmers are ending 2013 on a high and are hoping that 2014 brings with it good weather."
Portstewart
In December, a children's playground in Portstewart was flooded by waves crashing over the sea wall
Emergency services were also used to deliver food and medical supplies to homes in the countryside that were cut-off by the snow.
"We've had people who haven't been able to get their medication, so we've been arranging to have that delivered," PSNI officer Alison Ferguson said in March.
"We've also used the helicopters in the most inaccessible areas to try to get supplies to those homes."
Mediterranean temperatures
It was in July that the weather went from one extreme to another, with the summer heat-wave most people had been waiting for.
For two weeks we basked in temperatures normally recorded around the Mediterranean.
At one point, temperatures soared to 30.1C - that is just below the all-time record high of 30.8C set at Shaws Bridge in Belfast on 12 July 1983.
