Three status yellow snow-ice warnings issued as sub-zero temperatures hit the country

@Brendan Mason: Don’t mind Gerald, his tinfoil hat is on too tight again

@Brendan Mason: There are very strict rules governing the precise time of midwinter and midsummer just as daily noon is a definite event. Six weeks either side of midwinter put the start as November 1st and February 1st .

There is no such thing as astronomical noon and meteorological noon when temperatures are normally at their warmest around 3 PM despite noon occurring at 12 so neither is there astronomical winter or meteorological winter. It is common sense.

@Brendan Mason: Cold/ warm weather changes from year to year however the astronomical determination of midwinter and its effects are predictable making November 1st the start of winter and February 1st the end of winter.

People are more affected by the amount of daylight they get than whether it is warm or cold outside so being told that winter doesn’t end until March is an unnecessary and false thing to do. The hardest part of the winter has passed and the slow return to longer daylight starts to gather pace through January.

@Gerald Kelleher: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/seasons/summer/when-does-summer-start. I think the British meteorological should know. The answer is here. Forget st Bridget theory. That’s pre historic.
THE Irish weather station classes the first of march as spring. It makes sense to me.

@Gerald Kelleher: for most people, being cold is of more concern/annoyance than it being dark.
So more people are interested in the meteorological seasons (a month lagging) than the astronomical.

@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: Well the fact the man is correct makes your comment look a tad stupid. Spring starts the 1st of February, Summer starts the 1st of May, Autumn starts on the 1st of August and winter starts on the 1st of November. It is the way it is whether you disagree or not.

@Let free speech live: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/seasons/summer/when-does-summer-start

Not according to the British Met Office.

@Brendan Mason: There is no such thing as meteorological winter vs astronomical winter no more than there is meteorological noon vs astronomical noon. This is just the same make-it-up-as-you-go-along indiscipline that has basically destroyed the ability to appreciate the response of humans and nature to the daily and annual cycles of the Earth.

https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/

The key to appreciating the seasons is isolating the Polar day/night cycle where there is on one sunrise, sunset, noon and midnight each year and applying this cycle at our latitudes where its rotational cause combines with daily rotation to create the seasons.

Our ancestors got it right, midwinter is on the Solstices and there is no such thing as the meteorological seasons unless people like meaningless junk.

@Alan Lawlor: Astronomical noon is at 12 so what time is meteorological noon ?.

See how silly the whole thing is ?.

@Brendan Mason: That is bull, Spring starts the 1st of February. Why don’t you show the daffodils that little article and see will they stop growing until March ffs.

@Gerald Kelleher: so you are right. And the British and Irish met office are all wrong. You will find that USA have similar dates too.
It stand to reason why is it so cold in 1st of feb. Unless you are writing tbis from your hotel room.
in the canaries.

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/aboutseasons.html

Check that one out. Your St Bridget theory is obsolete. How many proofs have I to give you.

@Let free speech live: only in Ireland we think like that. The British Met Office is wrong. They circum navigated the world. Did you.? Can you not check out the web sites I posted. Forget st Bridget theory. It’s obsolete .

@Gerald Kelleher: your post has created the first online meeting of AA..anal anonymous.

@Let free speech live: you might get daffodils in Feb and you might not. You should get them in March. All countries officially class March as the start of spring. That’s makes sense.
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/aboutseasons.html
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/seasons/summer/when-does-summer-start

@Gerald Kelleher: where does the groundhog come into all of this?

@Brendan Mason: The British can do what they like, but I live in Ireland where Spring starts in February. Saying it is cold in February so it is Winter is rubbish. It can be cold from October to April so will we just call that Winter and everything else not Winter. Everything starts springing to life in February, in fact I have seen daffodils already so how cold is it?

@Let free speech live: Ireland is right and the rest of the world is wrong. You are right and every one else is wrong. Have you any facts to prove it. If not that is how trolls work. I don’t like trolls.

@Brendan Mason: Midwinter goes back to the time of Newgrange in this island’s culture however the Irish have worked with variations in daylight/darkness throughout its history.

You are hardly aware of the new approach to the seasons which isolates the Polar day/night cycle by cause and extending it globally but it is precise and therefore the Met services are going to play catch-up even as readers here understand it reasonably well.

If you live in the South pole station, you will see only one sunrise each year on the September Equinox -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okw6Mu3mxdM

After this event the Sun stays constantly in view for 6 months until the following March Equinox when the Sun disappears from view for another 6 months. On the December Solstice it is therefore Polar noon at the South Pole and Polar midnight at the North Pole.

What happens is that the entire surface of the Earth will still turn once to the Sun and parallel to the orbital plane if you subtract daily rotation and the 24 hour day/night cycle. If you can find a way to explain the Polar day/night cycle by other means then be my guest but the Met services have yet to come up to speed on what causes the seasons and what the seasonal markers are.

@Gerald Kelleher: if you’re going astronomically speaking then surely spring should start at the spring equinox as that’s the first point in the year when the entire Northern Hemisphere has sun light.

@Brendan Mason: I don’t worry about the rest of the world, they can look after themselves and personally I don’t care if the British decide Winter will now be called Summer. You only need to look at the plants and animals to establish when Spring starts. I see where you are going though, man on Internet disagrees with me therefore said man is a troll. I suggest you come off the British weather sites and Google exactly what a troll is my good man.

@Conor Egan: Our day is anchored to noon when we turn midway to the planet’s circle of illumination or, as the geocentric astronomers once saw it, when the Sun is highest . All other points such as sunrise/sunset and midnight are referenced to noon as the planet turns once each 24 hours. There is a lag in temperatures until 3 PM or so hence there is no such thing as meteorological noon .

At the South and North poles there is just one sunrise and sunset each year on the Equinoxes and one noon and midnight on the Solstices. Much like the daily cycle there is a lag in temperatures after Polar noon as sea ice continues to form after Polar noon has passed (last week). If you compare the Polar day/night cycle with the 24 hour cycle you will begin to see similarities emerge in the way noon is not the warmest part of the day no more than December 21st is the coldest part of the year. It removes the unnecessary ‘meteorological seasons’ and returns climate and weather to its cause in the motions of the Earth rather than human whims.

@Gerald Kelleher: For example, it’s now 5° here in West Cork! Do they not have any local information?

@Brendan Mason: maybe put down the screen in front of u and try experience it yourself, you will know more than the UK met office then, Gerald keep up your posts on articles like this I do love them

@Brendan Mason: You really should read the British website more carefully. You and Gerald are saying different things.

@Mark Carroll: Thanks Mark.

All planets , including our own, turn in two different ways to the Sun which is why we have the seasons.

http://hubblesite.org/video/175/news_release/1999-11

You can see Uranus turn South to North representing what we know as the 24 hour day/night cycle. About 50 seconds in you can see Uranus turn separately from East to West and this corresponds to the Polar day/night cycle on Earth. It means that if you subtract daily rotation, the entire surface of the Earth turns once to the Sun each year as a function of the orbital motion of the Earth.

@Brendan Mason: if winter finishes March 1st when does it start

@Gerald Kelleher: You have absolutely no clue about astronomy, you are just spouting half baked facts and a lot of BS

@Micheal Fitzpatrick: 1st Dec as stated by the Irish met office.

@Micheal Fitzpatrick: The coldest months in the year are December, January and February. WINTER.

@Brendan Mason: There is no such thing as meteorological noon as opposed to astronomical noon. People appreciate the experience that the warmest part of the day is not at noon when the Sun is midway from horizon to horizon but around 3PM just as they know it tends to get colder after December 21st for a number of weeks even as daylight grows longer.

When you find a website that explains why the Sun rises and sets only once a year at the North and South poles then let me and everyone else know but you ain’t going to find it.

Look at the time lapse footage and realize how special our planet’s motions are in order to dig yourselves out of the dire warnings and childish notions of the Met services in astronomical matters -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okw6Mu3mxdM

@brendan H: You can take your pick on the 1st Feb or 1st March and argue until the cows come home on whichever you choose. This argument comes up every year. The Journal did an article on it in 2014. Column: When does spring really start? http://jrnl.ie/1299726 and Gerard has been furiously researching it since then. Delightfully there is no right and wrong here so just keep arguing folks.

@brendan H: The darkest months of the year are the winter months of November, December and January however in term of temperature it changes from year to year. Nature goes into dormancy in November as many living things like the trees live by the single cycle which is why Samhain or the beginning of the Celtic New Year was on November 1st.

http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/ACalend/Samhain.html

I suppose some of us retain the genetic memory of our ancestors while making use of modern imaging tools to put our lives in context of the turning points of the seasons while some people suffer because a few dumb academics make things up as they go along to dazzle those who know no better.

@Let free speech live: you might be right about the how the planet’s operate. But is is how people perceive the months of the year. That is the KEY. February is a very cold month in Ireland. It is more winter then spring. Therefore most countries classify it as the last month of winter. I’m sure in Australia it is the last month in summer.
http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-weather-and-the-seasons
But to say I’m a troll is wrong. I have given you tree websites stating when spring starts or finishes and rejecting them is stupid. Between yourself and Keller it is about how people perceive the weather. They can’t all be wrong.

@Sean: There is nothing worse than mediocrity and to waste people’s time. What has not come up is how to isolate the Polar day/night cycle by cause and then use it to explain the seasons , how the degree of inclination determines planetary climate, why natural noon cycles vary from a 24 hour average and dozens of other topics. There is only one correct way to deal with the matter and it has a lot to do with how humans experience their surroundings in terms of temperature and daylight length. I can handle people with poor convictions and fight their corner but what is detestable is an idiot who doesn’t realize what is being done.

@Brendan Mason: The weather doesn’t determine the seasons. Flowers are very often seen outside of their season. I saw snowdrops a good while before Christmas this year and they usually aren’t around until Christmas. I’ve seen daffodils very early some years when we had mild winters. 1st February was always the 1st day of Spring – 1st May, the first day of Summer – 1st August, 1st day of Autumn and the 1st November, the 1st day of Winter. With the weather being very mild in Winter and sometimes getting an ‘Indian’ Summer in Autumn, it is easy for people who never actually learned the seasons properly to confuse different months and seasons. This is not really for debating – like a lot of issues where people think we humans are in control.

Regardless of how we would like to designate the seasons, the trick is to get out in the open during the little sunlight that we have at this time of year. Get out and about.

@Brendan Mason: Hold your horses there my man, go back and see who called whom a troll. I don’t call people who disagree with me a troll, that seems to be how you operate. February is Spring for me, more daylight and plants, grass and crops all start coming to life. You do what the British do is fine with me but it won’t stop me from thinking you are wrong. By the end of January it will be bright past 6pm. And by start of March it will be bright up to 7pm on a sunny day. Saying it is cold in February is bull. In March we have seen days hit 20 plus and they are like Summers days but not a Summers day. Same as it can snow in February and be like a Winters day but not Winter.

@Síghle A Ni Ainle: only in Ireland we think like that. The rest of the world think otherwise. Why is August the peak summer holiday month when it is autumn. It is how people perceive it. It is generally one of the hottest months of the year after July. Likewise January is the coldest month. For get galleo and astronomy. It is how tbe people percieve the seasons. Check out all the world sites regardi g the seasons. It is not tabloid.

@Brendan Mason: Yes people know better than nature, good man. How do we stop hurricanes, or floods?

@Let free speech live: anyone who doesnt accept facts and proof are either blinkered or very closed minded. I hope you will never be a judge in a courtroom. You say February. I say March. And I have the facts to back them.

@Gerald Kelleher: Deep.

@Brendan Mason: Unlike an idiot who thinks this cannot be resolved and is a perpetual argument, the reasons why midwinter is on the December Solstice and there is a lag in temperature responses after that day is for the same reasons that temperatures lag 12 noon as not being the warmest part of the day, generally the warmest part of the day is around 3 PM summer or winter.

Met Eireann have a bunker mentality which is fine until half the readers here realize that they actually understand how to understand the seasons by isolating the Polar day/night cycle at the North and South poles by cause. They will understand that Arctic sea ice will still form even as the area where the Sun is constant out of view is beginning to shrink after the December Solstice at the North pole.

What happens when enough people come to realize that they are being cheated out of explanations because of some misguided modelling agenda called ‘climate change’ to frighten people. That I can’t answer but it sure looks bad.

@Escay: There is nothing deep about it, you look at the information and imaging in front of you and then draw the only conclusions possible. No offence to the IT guys but they should have been on to this straight away and give a go and putting the story together properly thereby doing themselves and the world a favour.

@Brendan Mason: St Brigid’s day February 1st is regard as the first day of spring in Ireland by many …

@Brendan Mason: I dispute your facts as it is a man made decision you are going by. I am going by the laws of nature. When man figures out how to be better than nature I will join your side. Still waiting for my apology for 1. You calling me a troll and 2. You accusing me of calling you a troll.

@The Rev Ndabaningi Sithole: haha, tbf I never thought a debate about when winter ends would get so many comments.

This is not a debate, midwinter is fixed astronomically so this junk about astronomical noon vs meteorological seasons is as meaningless as astronomical noon vs meteorological noon.

Thanks to the Journal for allowing a discussion as it can’t all be about warnings and doom. Demonstrating a new approach to the seasons by isolating the Polar day/night cycle by cause won’t appeal to those who are driven by the ‘climate change’ hallucinations but it will appeal to those who suffer the winter blues and will feel soon enough the longer daylight after the Solstice.

Thanks to everyone else.

@Let free speech live: since August is autumn should the kids go back to school say 1st Monday in August as Summer is over. In America Memorial Day is last monday im May and Labour Day is the first monday in September. That is the summer in the USA . By the way those sites are government sites but you are too stupid to recoganise that. You have not given any evidence to say I’m wrong. As far as day and night is concerned 21st Dec is the shortest day and 21st June the longest. March and Sept are the equinoxes.

@Brendan Mason: Haha you think school holidays work around the seasons, that is a classic sir. Again I don’t care about the rest of the world I live in Ireland where Spring starts the 1st of February, nature dictates this not mankind and their ideas. Now off you go to see what else the governments of the world tell you what to think and do.

@brendan H: totally agreed.

So we just happened to be perfectly positioned on this planet so that our seasons start in the first of a month? Ha, take that every other country whose seasons also start on the first of……. Oh wait!

* This is not a debate, midwinter is fixed astronomically so this junk about astronomical seasons vs meteorological seasons is as meaningless as astronomical noon vs meteorological noon.

Come March 1st the Met Eireann forecasters will take great pleasure in announcing a fictional meteorological vs astronomical difference but everyone here with common sense knows they are bluffing . It shows how much Met Eireann cares about climate research and temperature fluctuations which accompany the daily and orbital motions.

@Let free speech live: where in a green house or was it in Spain.

@Let free speech live: you will be waiting. I showed you facts and you disregard them as if they were b.s., tabloid, you even used hate and racist remarks to other users. You never posted proof that you are correct. I never called you a troll. The fact yo disrespectfully disregarded the facts i posted, Australian, American, British sites stating the seasons you still downfaced me. Do you expect me to say that you are a genius and they have got it all wrong.

@Brendan Mason: You seem obsessed with what other countries do. You probably live your life doing nothing for fear of what the neighbours think.

@Mark Carroll: Have a read of this and rethink your comment.
http://www.astronomyforum.net/archive/index.php/t-55348.html

@Gary: Good that you brought that up as perhaps others are embarrassed by their present beliefs as I am of that short period when I used language that I wouldn’t use today for there is no point. Shortly after that I turned to emerging imaging to expand topics and so it remains to this day 12 years later.

Nowadays things are different, the solar vs sidereal cult is basically gone due to my efforts only to be replaced by an equally silly meteorological vs astronomical seasons and dopes that would promote it. Hopefully these comments have killed it stone dead by introducing something positive instead of cursing fools out.

The next subject is completing something I started last week in finishing a topic that was begun by Copernicus and the removal of a flaw in order to complete a full picture of the solar system planets – how to treat the motions of the faster moving Venus and Mercury differently than the slower moving Mars, Jupiter , Saturn and the rest as seen from a moving Earth.

@Liam: best of luck with your endeavours!

@Del Haven: Thanks. I’m off to sleep now, the last week spent sunbathing in Tenerife has left me rather tired.

@Liam: I doubt you ever rouse fully from tiredness.

@Liam: I hope you’ve stocked up on tinned food and powdered milk to see you through this catastrophic winter met Eireann keep trying to freak us out about.

@Liam: I’m OUTRAGED!!.. not really.

Most of those “fools” are also off this morning. Trolling on the journal must be the height of your day

@Danny Nash: Yup it’s far more eggciting than being stuck in traffic on an freezing cold morn

@Liam: what traffic mate? This morning? Hahahahaha….

@Liam: not much point getting up when one has no money to go anywhere or do anything, have a good xmas on €190 a week did we?

@Let free speech live: Why did you have to make it weird.

@Neal Ireland Hello.: Racism is weird?

@Let free speech live: No, the remake of the movie “It”.

@Let free speech live: I don’t think so . It’s just black ice. That happens to be shiny thin surface of ice on the roads in this country. It happens quite a lot in Spring particularly February according to your definition of spring.

@Josephine Carroll: I absolutely am

@Josephine Carroll: Heaney-esque for sure. When’s the book coming out?

@Josephine Carroll: The 3 of them must have went to Drogheda to do their shopping lol.

And yet it has been getting gradually longer for a week now. Every day gets a little more light

@Gerald Kelleher: you haven’t shown any proof of your theories except st Bridget.
You give a good idea about brexit which is off topic. Have you not seen the American system I posted. They say Spring doesn’t start till 21st March. I don’t classify this info as tabloid. In fact there is a pdf file from met Eireann. Check it out.
Give me evidence that spring starts in Feb other then the st Bridget b.s. that is not Irish based. I have given you enough facts.

@Brendan Mason: Many reader here have common sense and can learn why we experience a rise and fall in temperatures over the course of the year and why those temperatures lag the midwinter event on the Solstices. If you break the calendar year into 4 quarters then the start of winter is November 1st , ends January 31st so the other 3 seasons follow suit.

The lazy so-and so’s at Met Eireann have a lot to answer for in this respect because not only is this island’s heritage correct, people who feel the winter blues respond positively to the actual facts of the end of winter in January despite being told they must wait another month.

We are a nation with some of the largest IT companies in the world so it is about time they actually took a look at the information surrounding the seasons by isolating the Polar day/night cycle by cause. I have to scrounge bits and pieces from the internet to tell the story but need young people with courage and intelligence to create a dedicated narrative to instruct these meteorological and astronomical organizations as to what really works.

@Gerald Kelleher: Because only you are right, and every other meteorological and astronomical expert in the world is wrong, isn’t that what you’re implying?

@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: Do this for me Larissa.

All spinning planets keep the same orientation in space as they travel around the Sun with the Earth’s orientation looking like this -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYy0EQBnqHI

Get yourself a broom handle and walk around an object imitating the Earth’s orbital motion around the Sun by keeping the broom handle pointed in the same direction at all times. You will find out that you after you begin walking forwards, you have to move sideways, then backwards before moving forward once more as you complete a circuit. It means that every part of your body at one time or another faces the central object or the Earth turns once to the Sun as a function of its orbital motion.

The North and South poles of Uranus are like the Earth in keeping the same rotational orientation as it travels around the Sun which means it too much turn once as a function of its orbital motion and this can be seen about 50 seconds in when the time lapse speeds up -

http://hubblesite.org/video/175/news_release/1999-11

Really like that you try to change your appearance but real change comes from the inside.

@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: “If a million people say something is right, that doesn’t make it right” (author unknown)

@Gerald Kelleher: You are wrong, first of all Uranus basically “barrel rolls” along its orbit around the sun so its orientation is completely different than that of Earth, secondly Venus orbits retrograde compared to the other planets and the Venusian day is slightly longer than the Venusian year, so your statement that all planets keep the same orientation to the sun is incorrect, and your example of the broom handle would only work if Earth was tidally locked with the Sun, which would mean that one hemisphere would be always in complete darkness and freezing cold, while the other hemisphere boils, educate yourself before spouting nonsense

@Síghle A Ni Ainle: On March 1st the weather forecaster on RTE will announce the first day of Spring by suggesting to the tv audience that there is a difference between astronomical seasons and meteorological seasons. You probably know by now that there is no such thing as meteorological noon and astronomical noon each day because your body experiences the natural cycle and its rhythms -

https://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2017_40/2174941/171002-nobel-medicine-graphic-953a-rs_34bbf5007ce1695a57a80069967a4f93.nbcnews-ux-2880-1000.jpg

There is another body clock that responds to the annual cycle with its own noon (June Solstice) and midnight (December Solstice) and those who don’t adjust along with the rest of nature will suffer and also known as the winter blues. The people arguing for February to be winter are defying their natural rhythm in a way shift workers can overcome the daily body clock for a while but at what cost ?.

@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: The broom handle keeps the same orientation to external point but it must turn in a complete circle to the central object imitating the behavior of the North/South poles and the entire surface of the planet, this is no theory sweetheart, this is an actual observation -

http://hubblesite.org/video/175/news_release/1999-11

If you are not good enough to figure out why there is a single sunrise and sunset at the North and South poles on the Equinoxes then what do I care, most Irish people here already get it and that is all that matters.

@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: Venus orbit retrogrades indeed !. All planets show direct/retrograde motions but the faster moving inner planets show direct/retrogrades differently than the slower moving Mar, Jupiter , Saturn and so on.

All it takes for someone to get off their ass and do the experiment as I told you so that people can appreciate the surface rotation as a function of the orbital motion of the Earth . If the time lapse footage of the Antarctic Continent rotating daily as it comes into view around September while slowly turning across the fully illuminated face of the Earth and parallel to the orbital plane from Equinox to Equinox is not good or beautiful enough for readers here then nothing will -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFrP6QfbC2g

It is not a matter of just being right, it is a mirror on your own humanity and how we live by the daily and annual cycles.

@Gerald Kelleher: You should lay off YouTube and maybe try to pick up a real education

@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: YouTube is merely a medium to show what these large instruments like Hubble have discovered but seemingly you can’t get off your ass to understand the rotation behind the Polar day/night cycle at the North and South Poles and why there is a single sunrise and sunset on the Equinox while the Sun is either in view or out of sight for 6 months.

You need more than lipstick and a hairdo to make yourself different, you need to know what beauty is when it is in front of you and that when it resonates inside you that you come to enjoy your surroundings. Uranus keeps the same daily orientation to an external point throughout its orbit which means it also must turn in a complete circle to the Sun. If you can’t do the experiment then don’t bother me again but for everyone else it is there to enjoy for as long as they live -

http://hubblesite.org/video/175/news_release/1999-11

@Síghle A Ni Ainle: If that’s the case then why would you believe anything you hear. If the worlds experts on climatology etc say that global warming is a fact then I’d tend to side with them rather than an online hack with zero credentials on a comments section.

@Gary: There is a positive end to all this – many readers here are now aware of the great Polar day/night cycle and its cause while the experts are left to their own devices chanting warnings of planetary doom. We get to appreciate our own lives and that of the planet by putting the daily and annual cycles in context.

This is our home planet and if you look close enough at the Antarctic Continent you can see it turn in two distinct ways from the September to March Equinox until the North pole takes over -

This is not a debate, midwinter is fixed astronomically so this junk about astronomical noon vs meteorological seasons is as meaningless as astronomical noon vs meteorological noon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFrP6QfbC2g

@Gerald Kelleher: Many readers are now aware that you are keeping the tinfoil industry in business