Evelyn Cusacks forecast tonight

Had a go at Ken Ring too (moon cycles "and earthquakes for that matter")

We live in Ireland. People always talk about the weather. I'm sure most know all that animal and plant talk is nonsense but no harm in talking about it. At this stage I'd start talking in that way just to piss that Evelyn woman off. She comes across as an old whinger on the TV.

Evelyn Cusack is Su Campu

Gerry Murphy gave a little lecture last week too on the meaning of high and low pressure with a graphic to illustrate - never saw him do anything like that before. It's usually " Hello there and a very good evening to you " and off we go :pac:. The thing is effective presenting of any complex matter to the general masses should be characterised by simplicity. Most people just want to know whether it's going to be wet/dry, hot/ cold etc and couldn't give a fook about isobars or anticyclones etc. Bring back Gerry the winker and The Eagle.

Storm 10 wrote: »

Dont laugh at this one , about a week before Ireland got hit by hurricane Debbie a large number of sea birds came in to Salthill, I was down looking at them with my Dad as we had never seen birds like them before, there was a fisherman there also who told us the birds were called "Mother Careys Chickens" also known as Storm Petrals, he said they would only come into shore if there was a bad storm on the way, that time we had very little knowledge of the weather and a few days later Debbie struck and caused havoc, so maybe there is a lot in what the anilmals and birds know about the weather.

Read more: Mother Carey's Chickens | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/brewers/mother-careys-chickens.html#ixzz2mJnAmK6B

That's interesting because I remember before we had a really bad storm from the north that there were penguins in the quay close to where I live in Donegal a few days before the storm hit. SO to call predicting nature via nature is disingenuous.

I have to say I’m surprised at the level of support for this alternative method. As someone who lives and works in Donegal I’m constantly surprised at the amount of people who discuss and to some extends rely on the “postman”. When I express my own view that it is nonsense I usually get the response “ah there must be something to it”
My own view is that unless it is proven with proper scientific research it is basically old wives tales. I’ve seen nothing, no reliable evidence to suggest animals/ plants etc are not just reacting to their environment at that moment in time.

DOCARCH wrote: »

Penguins! :eek: Must have been some storm...from the south?

Yes indeed, however, it also clearly demonstrates a lack of understanding and yet a profound judgment call has been presented based clearly on these misunderstandings.

I'm sure this poster is not alone, and IMO, some of Evelyn's comments have been taken as gospel from a pulpit by a very susceptible audience.

I'm sure though that the Penguins had escaped from a local "Sea World" attraction and we were in error in our judgment call.

Here's Cusack's attack from yesterday in case anyone missed it:

Lumi wrote: »

Enough with the penguins, polar bears etc. Back on topic please

I think it is about this, and I think Lumi moderation is turning sour. How does one report inappropriate moderation.

Of course if we take the thread title, then, yes, but this has evolved beyond Evelyn's last night ~ and maybe you were right to have closed it when you did.

It was hot then, it's certainly very hot now.

Evelyn discussed animals on a weather forecast and you, Lumi, ban its discussion? It IS on topic, TBH.

In all of the research I have done, I must admit that I have never looked at natural signs related to animals and plants. However, I am not as opposed to the concept as some of the mainstream experts seem to be. This is perhaps because I really don't know how you would study this without understanding animal behaviour and vegetation cycles. Very few people who study meteorology know very much about these fields.

Now just from basic logic, plants would be less likely than animals to exhibit signs of future weather trends. As talkabout said, vegetation responds to weather that has already happened. So the only way that vegetation could be predictive would be if certain weather patterns were correlated with other patterns. This would lead to some of the folklore signs being reliable, but without any conscious foreknowledge within the plants themselves.

As to animal behaviour being predictive, this seems a bit more plausible to me. Once again, I don't imagine that the animals are consciously responding to future knowledge, but rather are being guided by instincts that are related to atmospheric patterns or magnetic fields. If these have predictive values of any kind, then the wildlife will tend to behave in ways that appear predictive more by association than by raw logic. Example, if birds or fish come into shore before big storms, is that a logical thing for them to do, or is it forced upon them by distortions of the instinctive environment by which they are continually controlled? I would guess it is the latter.

My opinion is that we are starting to uncover various ways to predict longer range weather trends and the truth is somewhere between absolutes that you sometimes hear, such as "there is no way to do that" and "I have an infallible method." Just like the animals, it's interesting that humans in Ireland can predict future weather trends with some accuracy, especially in groups -- this is ironically shown by our forecast contests where the consensus is often more skilful than most if not all individuals. Now if the consensus was also random this would show a pointlessness to the exercise, but if the consensus is skewed towards the actual anomalies of the weather (on a monthly scale, because that's how our contests run) there would be something akin to recognition of future trends, although perhaps what's really happening is pattern recognition, how a fairly reliable starting point to a month already in view might evolve later.

These questions are all probably more complicated than you can "finish off" in a couple of minutes on TV, that's all I'm going to say but a half hour discussion might shed some light on it. I guess I'm a bit far from the studio to be of much help in that.

http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/

Find Callan's Kicks on Radio one and go to 11.00.
Recommended.