Hot summer? Spring forecasts will reveal all

SCIENTISTS have discovered a way to predict weather conditions weeks and months in advance.

Spring-time sea temperatures can now be used to predict how dry or wet the next summer will be, it has been claimed.

The team of researchers at the University of Reading in England have found that sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic can more accurately predict rainfall in the following July and August than current seasonal forecasting methods.

The director of climate research at the college, Professor Rowan Sutton, said that the temperatures in this area influence the development of storms and weather systems that bring rain.

However, speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland, he stressed that it is a riskbased forecast, and isn’t 100% reliable

‘We think it will be possible to assess the risks and maybe we’ll be able to say there’s a 75% chance that there will be a drier summer or a wetter summer,’ Prof. Sutton said, adding that this information can be factored into decisions made by a number of businesses, such as farming, tourism and planning.

‘What we’ve found by studying observations of the state of the ocean and weather patterns over the last 30 years or so is that there’s been a consistent relationship between particular patterns that we observe in spring, in March and April for example, and then the subsequent summer conditions over July and August.’

Meanwhile, the Road Safety Authority warned the public to be careful today as it is the shortest and darkest day of the year. RSA chief Moyagh Murdock urged cyclists and pedestrians to wear reflective gear and carry torches on dark roads.