Colm O'Regan: Warmest month? If felt more like Meh then May to me

Comedian and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O'Regan pictured in Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Even I was surprised. The Warmest May Ever? It felt more Meh then May. People tend to get angry when you tell them the weather’s warmer than they thought it was. 

“But I had the heating on all the way through”. “Last May was warmer” said many. And they weren’t all subjective thoughts. People with solar panels said they got less out of them this year than last. Me too. So we have actual data. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Met Eireann.

In addition the record-breaking May was still 13 degrees. 13? That’s not warm. You’d still need your Big Coat.

But we really must resist the temptation to confess to the world we don’t know how averages work. We learned them in school. Remember in Busy At Maths 6? Where we had questions such as “what is the average weight of these four children?”. Not a question you could ask now.

Just to recap, if you add up all the maximum and minimum temperatures every day, and get the average, then on average, apparently May was warm. Or rather not cold. Because that’s the thing, it’s not that May was a roaster. It’s that it wasn’t cold. There were no frosts at night.

So if the highs are normal but the lows aren’t as low then the average still goes up even if you’re not having a Magnum with the car door open. And it wasn’t even that sunny.

Which is why the solar was down. What’s more, when it is sunny in May it can be colder at night.

According to Met Éireann there haven’t been May frosts in three years. And that’s a big deal. That’s a change. There’s often a shnakey frost in May. May is a shnakey month. There’s a reason they used to say “Cast neer a clout till May is out”

But we never listen. There’s nice weather in April and we’re so sick of cold spring weather we don’t put on long trousers back on until the snow is up to our ankles.

But there’s no point in lecturing people too much about averages. The problem is that the headline “Warmest May On Record” is statistically correct but meaningless for people who had the heating on or stood watching lakes reappear in fields.

Feelings are statistically insignificant but still important. If you feel cold you put on a boiler. Even though, putting on the heating is in itself a good demonstration of averages. The temperature of the room is not the temperature of the inside of the boiler.

Because Climate Change was called Global Warming during our formative years, many of us are still expecting deserts and animal skulls. But it doesn’t always mean that. It could just mean shite-er. More unpredictable. 

And that’s complicated and requires brainwork and it’s easier to blame Met Eireann for being up to something. But seriously, have you met weather forecasters? 

They’re the least Up To Something people you could meet. They’re cautious. What do you think happened?

You think George Soros or the Chemtrail people bribed them to fake the temperatures? Or they bought thermometers from Temu? No. They’re nerds about the weather and measurement and data. Nerds don’t fake. It would hurt their soul.

So yes, feckit yes, I do believe it was the warmest May on record. No it didn’t feel it.

And I know the stats don’t give a shite about my feelings. But we still have them and, in a world where everyone seems enraged with anyone official and suspicious about facts, our spontaneous illogical feelings need to be taken into account.

So maybe the headline should be: Hard To Believe I Know But That Was The Least Cold May On Record. Now let’s talk about why.