For one day every year, a little before the clocks roll forward into summertime, the State's weather people try to be more than normally conspicuous. That day is March 23rd, which for decades now has been designated World Meteorological Day, an annual worldwide exercise in benign propaganda intended to focus public attention on the importance of meteorology in our lives.
Every year a theme is chosen to act as a kind of hook on which to hang the celebrations. Today's theme is "Volunteers for Weather, Climate and Water", intended to highlight the role of the many individuals, academic institutions, religious groups, schools and so on who make a major contribution by collecting data.
Met Eireann's network of 13 weather observing stations is supplemented in this way by a much larger network of rainfall and climatological stations, many manned by voluntary observers.
There are some 600 rainfall stations, for example, where at 9 o'clock each morning the amount of rain which has fallen in the previous 24 hours is carefully measured.
Less detail is required in the case of temperature and sunshine, because these elements vary less from place to place than rainfall. But here, too, supplementary information from voluntary observers at some 65 climatological stations is used to complete the picture; maximum and minimum temperatures for each 24-hour period are read at 9 o'clock each morning, and a continuous record of sunshine duration is obtained from sunshine recorders.
Weather reports provided voluntarily by ships at sea are also highly valued. They are used both for climatological purposes and as an input for computer weather forecast models, and are especially valuable because of the relative scarcity of data over the oceans.
Eight voluntary observing ships operating in Irish waters routinely provide reports on their local weather to Met Eireann.
Yesterday, as a prelude to World Meteorological Day 2001, Mr Joe Jacob, the Minister of State responsible for meteorological matters, made presentations to two of these major voluntary contributors of weather data. The Ordnance Survey Office in the Phoenix Park has provided daily weather observations since 1855, and regular weather reports have been received from the ships of Irish Ferries for many years.
The Minister publicly recognised the very valuable part played by these organisations over the years.