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Commuting weather diary

Iwannahurl

There is a perception that the number of rainy days in Galway is extremely high, and that weather is a natural and immutable deterrent to walking or cycling in the city.

Having lived here for most of my life, I disagree. My own perception is that while rain is clearly a feature of Galway life throughout the year, it is still possible to walk or cycle a reasonable distance to work or school without being soaked on a regular or frequent basis.

This is feasible with appropriate waterproof gear and where commuting distance is short, eg 4 km or less for cycling, or up to 2 km for walking.

Here's the weather report from my short commute this morning. Feel free to add your own. It would be good if we can keep this going for a decent length of time, in order to build up a picture of what walking and cycling is really like in terms of weather.

Trip: morning school run.
Distance: 3 km.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: sunny, no rain.
Comment: pleasant cycle, weather-wise.

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zarquon

My commute is 14k and although i have cycled it on several occasions, i dare not do it during winter or if the clouds look ominous so today it was most certainly by car

Iwannahurl

what_traffic wrote: »

Trip: Work Commutte @ 09h00
Distance: 11 km.
Time taken: 30 minutes
Mode: Cycle.
Weather: Dry. Northwest wind - had no bearing on time though
Comment: Pleasant cycle in cool conditions. Road was wet, fallen leaves are not swept often in Galway City

That's very interesting. Dry for your whole 11 km commute? That's another thing about Galway weather, perhaps: it's very local. Maybe some else commuting the same distance or taking the same length of time might have a very different experience? However, that local variability works both ways, presumably. It also means that it might be raining at the origin of a journey but perfectly fine along the way. The key point is: rain is not constant and there is not necessarily a high probability of a soaking on any one trip. I'm working on that last one, by the way.

Iwannahurl

zarquon wrote: »

My commute is 14k and although i have cycled it on several occasions, i dare not do it during winter or if the clouds look ominous so today it was most certainly by car

The longer the commute the greater the 'risk exposure' in terms of soaking potential.

My main focus is on shorter trips. 47% of the city's population live 4 km or less from their place of work or education.

By the way, lest there be any doubt, Senior Infant did not cycle today. I did all the "slogging".

zarquon

Iwannahurl wrote: »

The longer the commute the greater the 'risk exposure' in terms of soaking potential.

My main focus is on shorter trips. 47% of the city's population live 4 km or less from their place of work or education.

I agree with you there. TBH if my commute was 3 or 4K i would definitely cycle most of the time rather than sit in traffic unless it was pelting down or ice on the road.

what_traffic

Iwannahurl wrote: »

That's very interesting. Dry for your whole 11 km commute? That's another thing about Galway weather, perhaps: it's very local. Maybe some else commuting the same distance or taking the same length of time might have a very different experience? However, that local variability works both ways, presumably. It also means that it might be raining at the origin of a journey but perfectly fine along the way. The key point is: rain is not constant and there is not necessarily a high probability of a soaking on any one trip. I'm working on that last one, by the way.

True it can be local. Especially in the summer. Some days when it is raining at my homeplace(Rahoon) it can be bone dry at my workplace(Parkmore). Looking at the met.ie rainfall radar today. Depending on what time you set off this morning one could have avoided rain. It's all about timing or luck I guess.

Iwannahurl

what_traffic wrote: »

Depending on what time you set off this morning one could have avoided rain. It's all about timing or luck I guess.

True that. It's possible for individuals to adapt their behaviour or adjust their attitude in relation to the weather. Timing and random factors will be highly variable at the individual level, but at the population level (that 47% of Galway residents living 4 km or less from work or education) I reckon there's a difference between perception and meteorological reality.

Sonandheir posted this link earlier:

sonandheir wrote: »

A good site I use regularly is nuig weather station.

http://weather.nuigalway.ie/12HourTrends.php

It's not often I use the word "cool", but that website has a really cool feature, which is their Live Weather Data 'dashboard'. While NUI Galway's weather station is not going to match everyone's experience on any given day, it'll give a reliable statistical picture over a longer period, say 1-3 years.

snubbleste

Meh shmeh
http://www.galwaycityweather.com/index.htm
It even has a replay of the last 24h for weather nerds, from a webcam no less

Iwannahurl

Good one.

I like the Rainfall Rate (mm/hr) and Last Rainfall stats.

I guess that makes me a weather nerd...

McTigs

Carolyn Old Stationery wrote: »

I pity your poor kid, I wouldn't cycle 3km myself at 28 never mind when I was 6.

He must feel very hard done by seeing all his friends hop out of nice warm cars while he has to slog away hail rain and shine on a bike at only 6 years old just because you have some silly anti-car nonsense going on in your head.

I pity the kids whose parents couldn't be bothered teaching a kid good cycling skills at such a young age and also that a bit of weather is nothing to be scared of.

Most kids are made of sugar these days, such a shame

Iwannahurl

Had to drive a total of 25 km or more in seven stages over and back across the city this afternoon, between 13:30 and 17:00. One short sharp shower that I can recall in that time, otherwise the windscreen wipers had little to work on.

WallyGUFC

Trip: College - way home - 7pm
Distance: 12km
Time taken: 15 minutes
Mode: Car.
Weather: Dry. Gusty wind, had no effect on driving.
Comment: Pleasant drive. Heater working very well. Person in front from Fleming's junction drove as if drunk. Very comfortable commute, no delays, lights working beautifully.

CrowdedHouse

In Oranmore there has only been one dry day in the last 31

www.oranmoreweather.com

Iwannahurl

WallyGUFC wrote: »

Trip: College - way home - 7pm
Distance: 12km
Time taken: 15 minutes
Mode: Car.
Weather: Dry. Gusty wind, had no effect on driving.
Comment: Pleasant drive. Heater working very well. Person in front from Fleming's junction drove as if drunk. Very comfortable commute, no delays, lights working beautifully.

Here's an unauthorised (though true and accurate in some respects) entry for one of my neighbours, just today:

Trip: taking child to creche.
Distance: 800 metres round trip (400 metres there, 400 metres back home).
Time taken: 5 minutes approximately, including walking child from footpath to door.
Mode: car.
Weather: spots of rain.
Comment: very easy drive. Only challenges were reversing out of driveway, wondering whether to bother going into 4th gear, and walking all of 20 metres from the car to the door of the creche (and back to the car again! :eek:).

CrowdedHouse wrote: »

In Oranmore there has only been one dry day in the last 31

What's a "dry day"?

If it's a day when there was no rain at all, then what of it? Rainfall is recorded over a 24-hour period, which means that, for example, several heavy showers can bring up the daily total rainfall considerably. That is no indicator of the risk of being rained on during a short commute of 4 km or less.

WallyGUFC

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Here's an unauthorised (though true and accurate in some respects) entry for one of my neighbours, just today:

Trip: taking child to creche.
Distance: 800 metres round trip (400 metres there, 400 metres back home).
Time taken: 5 minutes approximately, including walking child from footpath to door.
Mode: car.
Weather: spots of rain.
Comment: very easy drive. Only challenges were reversing out of driveway, wondering whether to bother going into 4th gear, and walking all of 20 metres from the car to the door of the creche (and back to the car again! :eek:).

I agree 100% with you that a situation like this is absolutely ridiculous. 800 metres is absolutely nothing, and a complete waste of fuel. But for me, a 12km cycle every day to and from college is unfeasible, no matter what the weather.

Patrickheg

This is a real "love in" for the usual anti car brigade.

Galway city forum is gone to hell lately. Seriously, a huge percentage of the threads on here are DOMINATED by these same 2 or 3 individuals with the exact same agenda of anti cars(exchanging thanks with each other like it's going out of fashion) Take this one for example, started out on galways weather and it could have been a decent thread but we have the usual suspects dominating it with their massaged statistics on how lazy everyone else is and how great and superior they are. The usual RAMMING statistics which suit them down other peoples throats.

These types of threads are all almost identical, a large few users contribute at the beginning then give up as the thread is hijacked and the few usual suspects are left flogging their fairy theories of everyone should cycle 15ks to work each day and anyone who drops their kid to school is evil.

I follow a few other regional forums on boards and none of these are like this where the same 2 or 3 posters are allowed to cause argument time after time. Allowing this to continue is a joke

A question for the mods. Any way to design a system where a thread can be marked as a "love in" so the rest of us can ignore these types of threads which have been hijacked, something like when bargain alerts mark a thread as "Expired"?

Iwannahurl

Trip: school run, followed by commute to work.
Distance: total of 7 km one way. Journey home after work will be 3.5 km.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: dry and cold. Temperature 4-5 deg, no rain since midnight.
Comment: IWH-OH did the school run today. Cycles to work year-round, with very rare exceptions.

biko

Patrickheg wrote: »

...

I just stumbled upon this post. If you want mod attention you need to send a PM or a report, we can't read every single post and it may get overlooked.
Post your post in Feedback please, let's keep this thread about commuting.

WallyGUFC

Trip: Home - college. 8.05am
Distance: 12km
Time taken: 25 minutes
Mode: Car.
Weather: Dry. Breezy. Very cold, wind chill a big factor.
Comment: Pleasant drive. Heater took a bit longer to work properly. Might have to get it looked at. Lights working perfectly. Nice to have the radio while stuck in the occasional lines of moving traffic.

Iwannahurl

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Trip: school run, followed by commute to work.
Distance: total of 7 km one way. Journey home after work will be 3.5 km.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: dry and cold. Temperature 4-5 deg, no rain since midnight.
Comment: IWH-OH did the school run today. Cycles to work year-round, with very rare exceptions.

Slight correction: IWH-OH did 7 km commute. Junior Infant did the usual 3 km, lights flashing for an extra bit of glitter and glory.

Beautiful early winter weather at the moment: cold and dry. Set to continue for the next few days, I believe. You wouldn't mind the cold as long as it's dry...:)

what_traffic

Trip: Work Commutte @ 11h00
Distance: 11 km.
Time taken: 30 minutes
Mode: Cycle.
Weather: Dry, Sunny and cold. Northwest wind (Headwind for commutte).
Comment: Pleasant cycle. Road dry. Light car traffic. Sunglasses needed

antoobrien

what_traffic wrote: »

Road was wet, fallen leaves are not swept often in Galway City

Looks can be deceiving. I've been out for a walk several times this week. The first day the pathways were being cleared, the next day it looked as if nobody had cleared it since spring.

Iwannahurl

There was a wee sweeping machine on Threadneedle Road, yesterday I think it was.

The operator was trying to clear up the fallen leaves, and I don't think the machine was quite able for it.

yaledo

Iwannahurl wrote: »

My own perception is that while rain is clearly a feature of Galway life throughout the year, it is still possible to walk or cycle a reasonable distance to work or school without being soaked on a regular or frequent basis.
...
It would be good if we can keep this going for a decent length of time, in order to build up a picture of what walking and cycling is really like in terms of weather.

I fully agree with Iwannahurl's contention that it's dry enough in Galway to commute without getting wet frequently. If we gather enough data, and summarise it, I think a lot of people would be pleasantly surprised at just how rare it is for bicyclists & walkers to get soaked - even during the winter.

If anyone is planning an informal, ongoing survey like that, I'd like to see them announce the start of it and the end of it - invite people to join, and give a monthly summary of the results. I would like to contribute details of my own regular journeys on foot and by bicycle.

A difficulty of trying to prove a negative correlation is: If boardsies see dozens of "Today I walked x km and nothing interesting happened" posts, then it won't take long before the thread [and the people posting in it] are ignored.

Perhaps somewhere like livejournal, blogspot or surveymonkey would allow easier collection, management and analysis of data.

Iwannahurl

The thread is intended as a 'weather diary', and unless one is a celebrity diaries can indeed get a bit boring.

That's not the point though. It's meant to be a rolling record of weather as experienced while commuting. A HSE researcher conducted this exercise several years ago, as part of a broader work travel survey iirc.

What's of interest is whether daily weather conditions really are a significant deterrent to walking and cycling over manageable distances, and whether it rains on commuters as often as is believed.

Data are very important and useful, and for that reason I am also trying to get my hands on local weather statistics, with a view to working out rainfall probabilities/odds.

Today's commute: usual 3+3 km school run by bike. Glorious weather, cold and dry. Senior Infant greatly enjoyed it, and was toasty warm arriving at the school. Traffic unusually light in some areas, unusually heavy in others. Weather-related?

what_traffic

Trip: Work Commutte @ 09h00
Distance: 10 km.
Time taken: 50 minutes
Mode: Walking and Bus.
Weather: Dry, Sunny and cold.
Comment: 2 bus hops. 405 (Rahoon @ 09h05 to Eyre Sq - 09h15) and then 409 (Eyre Sq@ 09h20 to Parkmore - 09h45 )
Day bus ticket is €3.90

Iwannahurl

Trip: usual 6 km round trip by bike to Senior Infants.
Weather: dry again, much milder than I expected.
Comment: school bike shed quite full.

Spoke briefly with another parent and child who had walked 2.2 km (20-25 minutes) rather than their usual cycle, which was not possible/advisable because of an injury.

what_traffic

Trip: Work Commutte @ 08h30
Distance: 11 km.
Time taken: 30 minutes
Mode: Cycle.
Weather: Dry, Dull and cool. No wind
Comment: Pleasant cycle. Road damp.

Mr_A

Since this thread started I've done a full week of commuting by bike Doughiska-> Ballybritt Industrial Estate. Only had to wear rain pants once and even then it was only precautionary because the road was very wet. Long may it continue!

snubbleste

Mr_A wrote: »

Since this thread started I've done a full week of commuting by bike Doughiska-> Ballybritt Industrial Estate. Only had to wear rain pants once and even then it was only precautionary because the road was very wet. Long may it continue!

Do you go through the Ballybrit junction or use the tunnel?

Iwannahurl

Mr_A wrote: »

Long may it continue!

We're spoiled these days. Keep those pants on standby...