THE DONEGAL postman has finally announced his predictions for the weather for the coming winter, and its either good or bad news depending on your perspective.
Michael Gallagher, who is famous for using traditional methods to make long-range weather forecasts, has declared that the chances of a white Christmas are high. However, for those not too fond of the cold, his predictions for the winter overall are not good.
Speaking to the Donegal Weather Channel, Mr Gallagher said there was “a strong possibility of snow around Christmas.” He then went on to predict a “changeable” winter in store, and said there would there would be lots of cold weather in December.
Locally, here in Fermanagh some had noted lots of berries on the trees early on in the autumn, which is believed to be a sign of a cold winter to come. For Mr Gallagher, it has been the behaviour of both our wildlife and our farmers that has been pointing to snow and ice.
“The foxes are coming down from the mountains and the robins are going into the houses, they are well aware something is in the air,” he said. “There is definitely a change on the way in December, it will be very interesting to see.”
He added: “There was lots of hay made this summer and the older people are saying it will all be used over the winter.”
On the more scientific side, climatologist Peter O’Donnell from Irish Weather Online is another accepted weather seer, having successfully predicting the two bad winters of 2009 and 2010.
While Mr O’Donnell has not made a winter-wide forecast for this year yet, he too has predicted a changeable start to December.
“It will be colder for a time around the end of next week into the weekend of December 7th-8th, before a more variable regime sets in towards mid-December,” he said.
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