AFTER A promising start, summer 2009 is turning out to be every bit as bad as the two atrocious summers that preceded it.
Met Éireann will issue weather figures for the month of July this morning, showing higher-than-normal rainfall. By this evening, the figures will look even worse, with 15mm to 20mm, or more than a half inch of rain, likely to fall on the southern half of the country today.
Dublin airport was already reporting record levels (147.8mm) with a week to go in the month, while parts of north Leinster have had four times the normal rainfall in the last fortnight.
The beginning of August will be more of the same. Tomorrow will have wind and rain, Sunday will be a little bit better and will stay largely dry, but the wind will increase on Monday with rain turning heavy in most areas.
After that the weather for August is predicted to be drier, mercifully so, but also cooler.
“There will be no settled period,” said Met Éireann forecaster Siobhán Ryan. We’re looking at 16 to 18 degrees for the whole of August. Hopefully I’m wrong about that.”
Meanwhile, the Met Office in Britain has faced a storm of criticism for its now-ridiculed long-range prediction that it would be “odds-on for a barbecue summer” – made in April. The erroneous summer forecast, the third in a row, has caused consternation with many British families revising their plans to holiday at home.
That prediction has since been revised and the Met Office is forecasting that for the rest of this soggy summer, rainfall is likely to be near or above average for the UK and much of northern Europe, including Ireland.
Met Office spokeswoman Sarah Holland said it had been partially right in its predictions as June had been a glorious month and the weather at Wimbledon was the best since 1995.
Former Northern Ireland environment minister Sammy Wilson, best known in meteorological terms as a climate change denier, said the Met Office “should not be taken seriously as a long-range forecaster”.
Met Éireann’s public forecasting model only lasts five days. Irish forecasters do not have the manpower or the huge computers needed to make long-range seasonal forecasts with any accuracy.
Ms Ryan said that even small variations in climate could send the best long-range forecasts awry. It is known as the “butterfly effect” where a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a major storm because of the way it alters the atmosphere around it.
“I wouldn’t disrespect what the Met Office is trying to do,” she said.
