Weather sage warns of wet Irish ‘summer’

THOSE planning a summer break in Ireland would be best to set aside some days in June as July and August are forecast to be far from hot.

New Zealander Ken Ring, who correctly predicted not only last summer’s gloomy conditions using his study of the moon and tides but also the flooding of November, has warned us not to get too carried away with the reasonably clement conditions he is predicting for June.

That month will see a third less rainfall than average and even extended periods of sunshine. In particular, Mr Ring believes the first week will be mostly sunny and, overall for June, he even ventured that Munster would be 20% drier than average.

However, if his methodology is to be believed it all goes downhill from there. July will deteriorate with regular patchy rain and hardly any days when the sun will be free from the invasive presence of frequent scattered clouds.

August may bring a bit more sunshine, but the days will also be cooler and the rain will still be ever-threatening. In fact he predicts up to 25% more rain than average for Connacht and Munster.

He predicts 2010 will be wetter than average for most of the country.

“These are average to slightly drier-than-average expectations for Hills-borough in the north, Ardtarmon in the central west, Dublin in the central east, and in southern Ireland: Shannon, Kilkenny and Cork,” said Mr Ring. “Comparing to long-term monthly averages, the wettest month for the whole country may be September, followed by April. The driest month may be October.”

Those who crave brighter weather should soak up conditions this weekend. Met Éireann is predicting mainly dry, settled weather through Friday and over the weekend. “(It will be) a mild, dry weekend across the country with good sunshine in many areas and light mainly southerly winds becoming more south-easterly on Sunday.

“It will be warm at times for early April with afternoon temperatures of 14 to 18 degrees, but the nights will continue cool.”