Ireland and UK weather

2009 SUMMER REPORT
Our summer report was accurate enough to draw media comment and many Irish farmers are now interested in the moon method of predicting weather.
Irish media samples:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/maverick-forecaster-ken-was-right-as-rain-1867623.html
http://www.independent.ie/farming/news-features/kiwi-weather-expert-forecasts--a-watery-end-to-dreadful-2009-1886289.html
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/marianfinucane/1249917.html   Programme #38  Scroll to 1:07:30
http://www.wiredwithwhelan.com/?p=796

2009/10 WINTER REPORT (updated 11 Jan)
Overall
2009/10 would have been about the middle point of the run of milder winter years for Ireland, had the new sunspot cycle kicked in when expected. However the delay in Cycle #24 kicking in has seen cooler winters arrive all around the globe. Jetstreams are moving air masses between pressure systems and fronts. They tend to bring colder weather in the form of depressions, and at this time of year and season, the usual situation is for the atmospheric depressions come in closer to the poles, which allows warmer air to reach you from the equator without some big system standing in the way. But these days these rivers of air are on the equatorial side more, so Ireland finds itself catching all cold air pulled down from the North Pole.  It's also why Ireland has had such a bad wet summer - these depressions are further south than they should be, they've been hanging around the English channel bringing colder air to there, when they should have been further north around the poles. These jetstream levels have a cycle, tied up with the movement of the moon as it constantly crosses hemispheres. Therefore it's predictable. Next year a better summer, and down in the other hemisphere a colder winter.

2010 SPRING REPORT
The year is virtually divided into two parts, trending cloudier-than-average from January to May and then sunnier from June to November.
March and April may be fairly wet, in March the rain mostly affects the West; Lough Navar and Sligo, and further south in Newport, Tralee and Killarney.
In April it is the turn of Galway to receive some of the heavier falls.

2010 OVERALL
2010 should be wetter than average for most of the country, with some exceptions. These are average to slightly drier-than-average expectations for Hillsborough in the north, Ardtarmon in the central west, Dublin in the central east, and in southern ireland; Shannon, Kilkenny and Cork. Comparing to longterm monthly averages, the wettest month for the whole country may be September, followed by March and April. The driest month for the country may be October followed by June then February. In January and February the wettest areas may be in parts of Northern Ireland.
During the summer months the central west may see the driest June, but northern areas may see the driest July.
June should be the driest month for all except for Dublin slightly wetter, also Killarney and Cork may have above average June rain falls.
In August only Dublin may be significantly drier-than-average, with most places seeing more than their average rain.
A warm start to summer, turning average mid-season and ending on a cooler-than-average August.
An overall cooler spring in each month.
This results in an overall average expectation for the whole year.  Exceptions may be Galway with a warmer year, and Tralee with a year cooler-than-average overall. Months that may be warmer-than-average may be January (except for Tralee), February and March (except in some Central and Southern parts), June(whole country) and December(except for Lough Navar in the north and Tralee). Tralee should have the coldest winter and Hillsborough and Tralee the coolest spring. Lough Navar, Shannon and Killarney can expect a warmer-than-average summer. Drumsna, Roscommon and Tralee can expect a cooler-than-average autumn.
In terms of daily sunshine amounts, expect an overall cloudier winter and spring, followed by a sunnier than average summer and autumn. The year is virtually divided into two parts, trending cloudier from January to May and sunnier from June to November. January should be more cloudy-than-average except in some southern regions, but February should be an average month for sunshine amounts. Drumsna may find itself blessed with more sun than normal during May. June should be the sunniest month for all, followed by August. September and October may be average-to-sunnier, but November only average except for Tralee and Killarney in the South. And apart from a cloudier-than-normal January and April, Drumsna may be the only town to find itself with an average-to-sunnier year.
The UK and Ireland are in the grip of a cold winter. Some are comparing it to 1962/3. There is a while to go yet, until the peak around the end of January. The year should be cooler, with summer short. Minimum temperatures are slow to rise through the summer months. Following the end of January the numbers of airfrost days should decline but not finally abate until mid April. These begin again in early autumn, meaning the year should be generally cooler than the longterm average for the northen hemisphere, continuing the cooling trend of the past 9 years. The best summer weather is likely to be short, spanning only from the last part of May to early June and from the last week in June to mid July.

Reason for the cold
I think the unusual combination of three things has brought the cold on, and has to do with Sun, Moon and Mercury.
First of all it is a cooler Sun at the moment and has been cooler for the last 12 months all around the world as we await the beginning of the next solar sunspot cycle. That brings cooler winters to places experiencing winter. NZ had its turn in May and June, with the colder temperatures breaking records. We had the coldest May in 45 years. In N Dakota in the US they had snow in JUNE which was supposed to be their summer. And on news channels we have seen record breaking snows in the SE of Asia too, and across China. So the Sun has been one factor. Probably the major one. Unless solar energy picks up we’re in for another round of cold winters in both hemispheres in 2010.
The second is the Moon. The Moon comes closer to earth every 27-day month, called the perigee, but some months it comes closer to earth than other months. When it does, it exaggerates whatever season it is. It just so happens that this winter the closer-moon time has coincided with the winter months. Last year this closer moon time was May-July, and the UK and Ireland much rain out of that. NZ had extreme cold. Next year the closer moons occur later, in February/March, which means later summer heat in NZ and Australia, and later winter conditions in the northern hemisphere.
The third factor is what astrologers call declination of planet Mercury. Declination (literally ‘going down of the line’) means the level of a planet in the sky. It just so happens that when Mercury gets level with the Sun we get huge temp swings. This isn't a new idea - it's been around for thousands of years in ancient Indian and Persian texts. Mercury gets out of influential range after 27 January and then will not be a factor again from then until the second half of March. .
Putting it all together, what happened was, there was initial cold lower temperatures due to Sun, then the Moon reached its most northernmost point on 3 Dec and perigee(closest distance) on 5 Dec, just as Mercury sidled alongside the Sun. That brought the beginning of the cold change. By NYE the Moon’s distance away was the fifth closest to Earth for all of 2010. Then we got full moon/perigee on the same day which usually brings extreme weather events around the world. Into the first week of January, with Mercury in position and Sun still cooler, the Moon was now trekking south from the north, playing its role in dragging cold polar air southwards, cold enough for all the snow dumps.

Coming up
I suggest that air frosts in some places may continue until the middle of April.
2010 should be cooler than average as the globe continues the cooling trend it has been experiencing over the past 9 years due to lower solar radiation levels.
Summer arrives for Ireland in the form of a fortnight of sunny weather from the last week of May onwards, then repeats a month later from the last week of June to the first week of July.