Newry Weatherman has Snow Place to Hide if his Forecast is Wrong

In Ireland we all have a fascination with the weather, but one Newry man has taken it to a completely different level, with weather forecasts compiled from a hi-tech weather station at his home on the Dublin Road presented to the world via his Facebook page.

Kieran Meaney aka Meaneys Weather has been predicting the weather since 2013 but it has been an interest since he was a child. Kieran explained "I think it came from my dad, I remember when we lived on the Warrenpoint Road he used to always look at the mountain, and he would say 'there's a cap on the mountain'. And when he was young he lived in Forkhill and he'd look over at Slieve Gullion and say, oh, we'll not be doing too much today, there's a cap on that mountain, which meant that the rain was coming or something to that effect. So that's where it came from."

Before the big snow and frost of 2010 arrived he was telling everyone that it was going to snow. His sister Sarah noticed him constantly telling people about the weather and suggested he should start a Facebook page, and as they say the rest is history.

The web presence took off immediately and since then he has expanded his knowledge, completing various courses including one with Leeds University and now he is studying for a degree in Meteorology.

It all started as 'Meaney's Weather Updates' with funny videos illustrating the forecast but family life took over for a while with young children in the mix. He is now trying to get back into a routine and as soon as he wakes up at five o'clock he's checking on the weather before he heads out to his day job, delivering for The Corn Dolly.

A proper accurate forecast takes about 45 minutes to an hour for Kieran, his motto being 'get it right first time every time'.

The basic things would be rain, temperature, wind and pressure. Kieran explained "You sort of fall into  today's going to be sunny, strong winds, a bit of rain, and the temperature is going to be 13 degrees, something like that. Keeping it simple, but trying to squeeze as much in as possible."

His forecasting data comes from MetDesk and he uses the Global Forecasting System. Explaining the procedure he said "You get a basic weather chart and from that weather chart, you have to compile the forecast that you think personally is going to happen. It's down to me.

"I compile my own forecast based on what I think, and what I can see is going to happen. They would give you the tools to make a forecast, but it's up to you to make your own forecast from the information that comes down the line from them."

Kieran added  "For me now, I can almost tell what the weather's going to be like without looking at radars or apps or things like that, just by the way, the winds blowing, you get a feel for it."

The weather in Ireland usually follows a specific pattern with Atlantic lows coming in from the west, low pressure coming in off the Atlantic and the wind coming from the west. It's very rare that you get anything coming from the east. When you do get it around this time of the year it's called the beast from the east which happens when cold air from the east meets the warmer air coming in off the Atlantic.

Thanks to the Jet Stream Irish weather can be quite predictable especially in the summertime when it is easier to call "You can start your day saying, yeah, it's going to be x, y, and z, you know it's not going to change. But from September right through to March, it changes every five minutes, especially if there's a storm like Éowyn coming or anything like that." he said.

"You get a feel for it. You can look and say yes I know what's going to happen up to five days out. That's how accurate you can be - five days. Anybody that says anything after that take it with a pinch of salt." Kieran pointed out.

An old style Barometer can be as accurate as anything "You know something's going to happen when the pressure starts to dive" Kieran  commented, although he did dispel the Newry.ie school of thinking, that tapping it somehow gave you a more accurate reading!

The worst thing to predict is Snow with a slight change in temperature being the difference between snow and rain. Kieran explained "It's very, very hard to  predict, especially because we don't get a lot of it and we're not used to forecasting it.

"I would say we're not very good at calibrating our radars in Ireland to pick up snow, because of the density of the clouds. It will show on people's weather apps and on the radar, but like what happened here a few weeks ago, it was showing a lot of snow, and then we got a bit of a breeze coming up Carlingford Lough which just softened the whole thing and it turned to rain.

"A couple of degrees, really, that's literally the difference.  One and a half degrees, was the difference between Newry getting a massive dump of Snow and rain."

August, September, October, November would be seen as storm season. Anything that boils in the Atlantic, certain hurricanes affecting the eastern seaboard usually gets dragged across by the jet stream and you might get the tail end of something here.

Overall in the past 10 years of watching weather patterns Kieran has seen the seasons pretty much gone. "Our summers becoming wetter. We're not getting the proper summer weather that we should do, I've noticed a gradual decline. Our winters are getting less cold. it's generally become a little bit more milder overall."

Weather predicting is a very responsible task and while Newry people love to have a weather guru in their midst it doesn't stop them getting a trifle annoyed if the forecast isn't seen as accurate. "It seems to be every January when you say it's going to snow, and there's kids driving past shaking their fists at me. Kids pointing 'There he is, there's that man that said it was going to snow' and I have to hide for a week."

Fortunately though he hasn't had any proper 'Michael Fish' moments (For those of you who aren't of a certain age BBC Weather Forecaster Michael Fish famously in 1987 said  'apparently a woman rang the BBC earlier and said there's a hurricane on the way - Don't worry there isn't' ... and of course there was!) 

Kieran recalled "A woman accousted me in B&M Bargains and says, 'You see you' and she shouted and pointed at me. She said 'See you weather man, I told the kids it was going to snow, we went and done a bit of shopping and there's no f**** snow. And she berated me in the shop, she had a real go at me. I was laughing and I thought, yeah, it's funny and she said 'I'm not laughing'"

Meaneys Weather has turned into a bit of a small business. Facebook pay him, recognising him as an upcoming digital creator and the page has regular sponsorship from McCoys Bar and Gullion Loss Assessors. Looking to the future he is hoping to build a website, bring his funny videos back and take to different platforms like Tiktok.

If you want to keep a check on the weather both locally and for Ireland as a whole check out Meaneys Weather at www.facebook.com but if you do meet him in the supermarket later try not to shout at him if you've stocked up for winters worst and the only chill it turns out is in the freezer aisle!