What's the weather like? Michiana vs. Ireland
While Michiana experienced an authentic St. Patrick’s Day as far as weather goes, ABC57’s First Warning Meteorologist Matt Standrige experienced the real deal.
From Dublin, Ireland, he had this story:
Rain and green grass; that pretty much sums up Ireland.
With the St. Patrick’s Day holiday here, I flew to Ireland to learn about the differences between the weather in Ireland and the weather in Michiana, and to talk to some of the locals.
“If I had one word to describe the weather in Northern Ireland, it would be “diverse,” said one local man.
Another man added, “I’d say to be a meteorologist here, all you would need to do is say, ‘Weather predictions: Rain every day.’ You would be one hundred percent right. You’d be the most accurate meteorologist in the world.”
If only forecasting in the Great Lakes was as easy.
Strangely, my trip was filled with a lot of sunshine and warm weather.
Normally there is quite a bit of rain in the Irish forecast. “Well its Ireland, after all. We are forty shades of green here, and that doesn’t come without a lot of rain,” noted another local.
I luckily did not see much of that rain but I was surprised to learn that South Bend actually sees more rainfall in a year that Ireland’s capital, Dublin, roughly ten inches more in fact.
In addition, we get plenty of snow and Dublin does not.
So then why is Ireland so green all year long? Well one answer is the tilt of the sun.
Ireland is so far north that the sun is never quite high enough to evaporate water out of the ground.
One thing that is the same though is the unpredictability of weather both here in Michiana and there.
An Irish man had an example: “We weren’t expecting a hurricane, and the weatherman kept telling us there wasn’t going to be a hurricane, but then of course there was a hurricane.”
The weather is always changing in Michiana and the same is true in Ireland, thanks to the high seas. All it takes is a wind shift and the skies can completely change.
I decided to go to the coast to see the North Atlantic and walk over it on a rope bridge. Around me and also below me was Ireland’s biggest weather maker: the Atlantic Ocean.
All year the North Atlantic Drift current brings relatively warm water up north, feeding in fresh sea air and showers to the Ireland.
You can get four seasons in one day in Ireland and generally the rain is never too far away.
Now, I spent my time along the coast of Ireland and all afternoon there were spells of heavy rain then plenty of sunshine.
The weather here just can’t seem to make up its mind, sounds a lot like Michiana.