Met Éireann doesn't do long-range forecasts, but others reckon they can predict the weather using frogs, computer models and other methods. So what's in store for summer, asks EDEL MORGAN
FROGS ARE spawning near rivers, the cuckoo hasn’t migrated yet and there’s a high pressure system coming in from the Azores. What does it all mean? That we’re going to have a good summer? Or that we’ll clutch at any straw that gives us hope of barbecue weather and lazy days at the beach?
“It’s all fairy tales,” says Patricia Hamilton of Met Éireann when asked about long-range weather forecasting. “The science of seasonal forecasting is not accurate.” But with Met Éireann not venturing beyond a 10-day forecast there are others ready to step into the breach and have a go at predicting what lies in store for us this summer.
MICHAEL GALLAGHER, FORECASTER
Well-known amateur weather forecaster Michael Gallagher a postman from Glenfin, Co Donegal and author of Traditional Weather Signstakes his cues from nature and points out he never said this summer is going to be a scorcher, as was widely reported.
“Overall indications are good although some of the media went overboard with what I said.” He says a cold winter often precedes a good summer, “and the cuckoo is still around and it usually goes away earlier.” Another positive development is frogs spawning near water “which indicates there’s going to be very little rain”.
The only fly in the ointment is the curlew he heard crying recently. “It can be a sign of storms and rain so that might be a slight problem.” He’s been watching out for the ultimate sign of a long hot summer – the stork coming up over the Bluestack mountains. “That would be a brilliant sign.”
TP O’CONCHUIR, FOLKLORIST
At the other end of the country, folklorist TP O’Conchuir from Ballydavid, near Dingle, Co Kerry, agrees the outlook is promising, at least until June 21st. “The only thing that worries me this month is that it’s been so dry. You should have a wet and windy May which fills the barns with corn and hay, but then May was dry in 1995 and that was a beautiful summer.
“The native furze flowered in autumn and the foreign furze in spring which was spot on,” says TP, who noticed the bees didn’t appear too early either, also a good sign . He is bamboozled, however, by the lush flowering of the Sally tree. “We were coming back from Waterford the other day and it was everywhere like snow, the ground is white. There’s some meaning to it.”
DR RODNEY TECK, NUI
Dr Rodney Teck a researcher in the Irish Climatic Analysis Research Unit at NUI, Maynooth says a number of developments augur well for a good summer. “For the first time in quite some time, five or six years, sea surface temperatures off the west coast of Ireland are below normal and sea surface temperatures off Newfoundland are above normal, this creates great stability over the ocean and allows a high pressure system to come in from the Azores and to become established. It may not be a summer where there’s blazing sun every month but we may enjoy a reasonable summer.”
He says if a high pressure system is established over Ireland, the whole country should get fine weather “but if it becomes established over Europe towards Scandinavia the west coast could get foggy, misty days, but other places in Ireland will have nice weather.”
On the east coast, he says, we could get rainfall in August “and that will be badly needed to fill up the reservoirs.”
JONATHAN POWELL, POSITIVE WEATHER SOLUTIONS
Weather forecaster Jonathan Powell of UK-based company Positive Weather Solutions, which predicted last winter’s big freeze, believes the British Met office’s decision to stop seasonal forecasting after getting it wrong last year is “very unprofessional. I’m in agreement that seasonal forecasting is still in its infancy but people want a general feeling of how the summer is going to go.”
He says that the computer model his company uses analyses trends over the past 35 years. “The Irish weather over the next three weeks is looking relatively settled bar the odd patch. Things break down on the longest day, with heavy downpours and cooler, cloudier conditions but the weather repairs in July, which will be mostly dry.” August will start off warm “but things break down mid-August and recover in the latter part of August going into September.”
KATE ARBON, ASTROMETEOROLOGIST
Less upbeat is Cork-based astrometeorologist Kate Arbon who says the outlook for the three months after June 21st “doesn’t promise any great improvement on the last few years.” She looks at the positioning of the planets and lunar phases and says “overall temperature is likely to fall below average and be quite cool for the time of year even setting some record lows. We are likely to see more extreme or unusual weather conditions.
“Towards the end of June and early July we can expect some heavy rainfall and in early July we could see strong winds, even some quite violent storms. From the third week in July it will be dryer and July will end with more wind and potentially severe storms. The early weeks of August will be wet with the possibility of flooding. September will be mild but overall temperature will remain below average.”
