Rain, Rain go away . . .

In Ireland there is always an awful lot of talk about the weather. It’s the natural perogative. After all, there is an Irish saying,

“If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes.”

Aside from being generally wetter than other places, the Irish climate’s consistency consists of its inconsistency. However, as you may have noticed from the many blog entries here on the weather as of late, there has been a lot more to talk about lately than normal.

I’m sure you’ve all seen that England is experiencing the worst floods in the last 60 years. Ireland, thankfully, has missed most of such calamity, but I can tell just by looking out my window that something strange is going on.

The Shannon would normally be so low at this time of year one could walk across the top of her weir wall. The water level is back up at where it usually is during winter time. It has been raining heavily, if inconsistently, for the last month.

Last year the summer was so long and warm people were fearing that global warming had finally taken hold. This summer the shops crowd stands of umbrellas and rain slickers around their front doors and business is good. Here in Athlone folks are still waiting to take out their sandles and shorts . . . will Ireland get her summer this year at all?

It sure doesn’t feel like it at the moment.