Ken Ring predicts a wait to 2018 for next heatwave

Iknew that it was a bit early but last weekend when the weather broke after a lovely couple of weeks, those hard annual were uttered to me: “Well that’s it now, we’ve had our Summer.”

It was probably said to goad me into some kind of dramatic reaction, and after all, this ‘proclamation’ was issued barely after the Ides of March (the 15th) had passed, but I resisted the temptation to reply.

We had a fair bit of this scaremongering after a very good April last year and maybe in 2015 we did ‘have our Summer’ during a most benign fourth month of the year.

The Summer of 2015 was certainly no great shakes although people have forgotten that we had a quite pleasant and dry June, although after that we had to wait for the gentlest of Octobers, to bring ‘a bit of humour’ back into our weather thoughts.

Up until last weekend at least, March had shaped up to be one of our driest months since last October helped by that generally dryish fortnight in the middle, although our Easter was sulky enough and the ‘Ould Cow Days’ have yet to come.

None of the meteorological services across the world will go pretty much beyond an absolute maximum of 10 days with their forecasts, although the UK Met. Office, via their BBC service, do make a stab at giving a general outline of the month ahead. But it’s cocooned with all kinds of caveats and generalisations.

Long term predictions are a pretty unctuous path to tread on but one gentleman who has made a pretty good living from such forecasts is New Zealander, Ken Ring, who publishes annual weather almanacs for many places across the globe.

Mention of his name though in scientific meteorological circles tends to draw something akin to the wrath of the devil on any of his defenders, but he has a cult following across the globe. Weather interest and gossip being what it is, this will always be the case.

Last weekend, I made contact with Mr. Ring via the email service and his Irish almanac for this year is winging its way to me, but in the meantime, he provided his own little summary of what’s in store for us across the West of Ireland this Summer. The news alas, is not maybe what you want to hear.

For what it’s worth, last year he did have some success with his ‘good April’ and ‘dryish June’ predictions. Using his lunar and solar cycles theory, he makes weather predictions, not only for the months ahead, but for years into the future. He’s a former teacher of mathematics and he’s wrote many books but his weather forecasts do not garner much by way of scientific support from the meteorological establishment.

Be that as it may, his fan club of weather worshippers has never diminished – if anything it has increased – but if Mr. Ring is correct, our next really scorching Summer is not going to happen until 2018. This coming Summer and the one of 2017 will be ‘just ok’ with occasional dry spells but ‘nothing spectacular’.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.