So now we know the culprit. The Irish Times diarist Kevin Myers has publicly admitted that God summoned a 2,000-mile wide cloud, all the way from Florida, just so it could coincide with his book launch.
Undeterred, friends and colleagues braved wind, rain and fallen trees to join him in Eason Hanna's bookshop, Dublin, yesterday, to celebrate the launch of the book, simply entitled Kevin Myers.
An unwontedly modest Myers said: "If you look at the letters quoted in the book (culled from the letters pages of The Irish Times) you will see me described as pompous and ill-informed. There hasn't been a more succinct description of my career."
The book contains almost 150 "Irishman's Diaries" chosen from 1,500 read by Mr Michael Adams and colleagues at Four Courts Press, which published the book. Myers agreed it was hard work and said "it was in the full knowledge of this that I declined to help".
The editor of The Irish Times, Mr Conor Brady, said: " `The Irishman's Diary' is a very long-established tradition in the paper. It was started in the 1920s by the late R. M. Smyllie. Kevin follows in this tremendous tradition of controversialism and outspoken journalism." Mr Brady chose to read the weather as a metaphor for the "havoc" Kevin Myers has been wreaking in the community.
"In a paper where much is formalised, to have one shining searing column every day which is bound in by no rules or conventions, which can wander at will, is one of the great strengths of the paper," he added.
Fans of "An Irishman's Diary" will be pleased to find old favourites such as "Hibernamus in Hiberniae" and "Bats and CJH".