Opening Lines

IF we are to be friends there are some things you should know.

If we happen to be chatting and at some point the conversation includes some speculation about whether it might rain that afternoon, chances are I’m going to say: “Let me just look up the Rainfall Radar.” Then I take out my phone and make some tum-ti-tum noises to myself before announcing: “We should be grand till six I’d say”. Rainfall Radar fanatics: I know you’re out there. You’ve recently told everyone in the family to bring a coat because it WILL rain. You’ve seen the people in your life who you love, roll their eyes and exchange glances when you mention it, as if you were some hairy-eared eccentric poring over 1986 World Cup Panini stickers in your garden shed. But we know don’t we, brethren — and sistren, but probably mainly brethren — that the Rainfall Radar has changed our lives.

For those not aware of Rainfall Radar — or fools as we radarchitects call you — it’s a page on the Met Eireann website which shows exactly were the rain is and has been. And then by playing the rainfall data over the last six hours, you can extrapolate out where the rain is going to be over the next while. The reason is showers — specifically scattered showers; the curse of temperate maritime climates.

If you’ve been to America you’ll know their weather is rather more binary. It’s good THEN AWFUL, then good. Here, we get scattered showers — a device so deleterious to our sense of well-being, they might as well have been introduced by Cromwell.

Showers attack in the country in bands at the first sign of a barbecue. When you scurry indoors, they disperse and regroup. But thanks to Rainfall Radar, you can see exactly where they are and where they’re going.

Obviously this does away with a lot of conjecture and small talk and I can sense a certain disappointment on people’s faces when I ruin perfectly good small-talk with THE FACTS, but that is how it must be.

Surely you must appreciate the increased certainty of knowing when it is going to rain. Why put on a wash and have it sitting in the washing machine acquiring mildew and the smell of a tannery when waiting a day will mean Alpine glade freshness for all the family? Why take a walk on in apparently cloudless conditions and ended up huddled next to a hedge like an eejit?

You may prefer to just listen to the weather forecast and make plans based on the ‘likelihood’ of showers. PAH! I spit on your likelihood. Maybe some of you embrace chaos and care not whence the next shower comes. ‘Free spirits’ you call yourselves. Perhaps you would see Rainfall Radar people as being control freaks unable to deal with the slightest uncertainty in their lives.

Actually, I can be as spontaneous as the next man. (If the next man has checked the Rainfall Radar to make sure the weather is suitable for spontaneity.) You must excuse me. Rainfall radar says I have an hour’s window for my walk. And I know for a FACT that I won’t need a coat.