Retired postman Michael Gallagher spent 48 years delivering letters to people on the coastline in Donegal, learning local nature lore as he travelled on his bicycle.
Such people, still connected as they are to the land and the sea, have never forgotten how to read the signs of nature. A cold wet May was a sign of a lovely summer, he said.
There was, he predicted, “some lovely weather yet” in 2021, offering hope to staycationers, farmers, fishermen, hoteliers who have never needed “a good summer” like they do this year.
Biologist and media presenter Éanna Ní Lamhna is an expert on the folklore of weather forecasting using nature. “Did you never hear about the cuckoo?” she asked before detailing how cuckoos come here from Africa for the summer.
But if they are early, it is going to be a bad summer for farmers. “If the cuckoo sings on a bare thorn, sell your cow and buy some corn,” she said, reciting an old rhyme.
“It means if the cuckoo is here before there are leaves on the branches, there will be no rain for the grass so you will have nothing to feed your cow and you should sell it and buy corn,” she explained.
The sight of dark brown or black coloured frogs forecasts rain, while the presence of light-coloured green or yellow frogs portend dry conditions. Then there are the bees. The earlier they swarm, the better.
But while Ms Ní Lamhna said cows in a field lying down were a sign of dry weather, she placed little store in tales that a long hard winter could be forecast on the back of the sight of heavy berry crops.
“A good berry crop is a sign there was a good spring and summer, it is a sign of what has happened; it is not a sign of things to come,” said the biologist dismissively.
‘Mixed’ conditions
However, Brian Gaze of the international weather website Weather Outlook told The Irish Times that Ireland would see “mixed conditions” including rain in the first half of July.
But he said “confidence levels build” for the second half of the year which would be drier than the first. There was a “good chance” that August would “be drier and warmer than average”.
Met Éireann meteorologist Paul Moore said forecasting for northwest of Europe was a difficult process with unstable Atlantic fronts bringing more changeable weather.
Mr Moore’s forecast for the first week of July is for “unsettled” weather with above average showers throughout the island. The second week in July, from Friday 9th, however, comes “with low confidence but likely to see more settled conditions with an Atlantic regime not being the dominant feature for the full week”. He said “a clearer signal for week three is for mostly settled conditions”.
Week four, from Friday, July 23rd, shows some hope for above-average conditions for much of the eastern half of the country. “It looks like being a warmer than average summer for the east of the country, but average for the west”, he said.
