Midland Weather Channel expanding nationwide

With annual page views of 6.9million, the Midland Weather Channel page on Facebook has become the go-to destination for weather enthusiasts.

Now page curator, Cathal Nolan, has plans to expand the service nationwide, to alert those wherever severe weather hits, as far ahead as possible in advance.

On a larger scale, he hopes to develop the service into a tool for business, developing it firstly into an app service, and secondly a farming service, using weather station technology to produce a software package which can essentially monitor conditions on a specific farm at any given time, potentially saving farmers thousands of euro by allowing them to maximise their weekly activities.

The 25-year-old, who is from Rhode in County Offaly, studied Arts in UCD initially, specialising in Geography and History, and then went on to study Climatology and Climate Change at NUI Maynooth. Now doing a Masters in Politics, and hoping to follow on with a PHD, Cathal has big plans for his weather page.

Midland Weather Channel was established in 2013 to provide the midlands with more accurate and up-to-date forecasts than had previously been available from the leading national providers.

“It has continued to progress every year since then thankfully,” says Cathal. “In October it had roughly 8,500 followers but the interest in the page has really exploded over the last six months and it’s reached just over 25,000 this morning.

“The aspect of the page that we pride ourselves most on is the advance warnings that we can provide for particularly severe events. We just look as far into the potential forecast as we possibly can, as many days ahead as possible and try to give a general idea of the risks that are involved.

“We initially provide risks and probabilities and then solidify the forecast closer to the time of the event itself when details become more clear cut,” he explains.

During particular severe weather events, such as Storm Emma, the Beast from the East, or last year’s record breaking Storm Ophelia, Cathal can spend anything up to 12 hours a day monitoring the weather.

“Growing up I had a huge interest in the weather. My father, Martin, always had a weather station in the house and recorded the weather at home every day in a weather diary since 1997. His interest was passed on from my grandfather.”

Cathal has his mother Fidelma Doolin to thank for his interest in politics.

“The immediate plan is to have a name change of the Midland Weather Channel to expand it to a countrywide service. It will continue for the midlands obviously, but also wherever severe weather impacts.

“And within the next six months we’re going to set up a website and connect it with the Facebook page and a Twitter link as well.

“I’m looking to provide a weather app which can be downloaded to all smartphone devices. We’re aiming to provide the earliest advanced warning of severe weather events that could potentially impact Ireland out of any service provider for a reasonably affordable cost. It’s hoped that we can look as specific aspects of the weather, to tailor-make forecasts.

“What we’re seeking to do is to have the advanced app on the market in relation to providing specific forecasts for specific locations using Google Maps technology where you can pinpoint a forecast at a particular moment in time. We can provide severe weather updates in real time, and especially for businesses – in terms of agriculture industry, we’re looking to become a market leader in providing specific forecasts.

“I think there’s a market there at the moment for a tailor-made device that can be used by the users themselves, based upon the evidence that we can provide as early as possible.

“We’re also looking to establish a farming service. The technology is in the developmental stage at the moment, but we’re piecing together weather station technology in order to produce a software package which can essentially monitor conditions on a specific farm at any given time.

“Essentially, it can take analysis of ground conditions of that farm at a particular moment in time, and predict the impact it’s going to have on growth.

“We can project forecasts for a week in advance into the model and essentially a farmer can look at his homepage and see what the next week will be like.

“They can plan ahead for the next week in terms of putting livestock in or out, spreading fertiliser and manure, or cutting silage and hay.

“It can save farmers potentially thousands each year and it’s also good for the environment as it prevents the risk of run-off and increased emissions of CO2.”

Cathal hopes to break into the European market by 2021.

“It’s ambitious plan but there’s 3.3 million smartphone users in Ireland at the moment,” says Cathal who in the past has taken a shot at becoming a cross-country skiing competitor for the Winter Olympics.

“I trained myself to a particular point where my body just gave up on itself – it ground to a halt. That particular setback gave me the chance to re-evaluate things, re-evaluate where I was going in terms of my overall future and I think this is a rather more sensible option.

“While it’s regrettable that I wasn’t able to pursue the ambition that I had, I’m still extremely happy that I was able to take that opportunity and give it a go.”

The last year has seen some record beating weather extremes in Ireland. Looking back, Cathal explains why this winter has been so intense, and why it’s not altogether unusual.

“We’ve always had severe weather events if we look back, 2010/2011, in 1982, 1963, 1947, 1917 – they do occur but the frequency has become a bit more common.

“Windstorms have become more prevalent here, but there is also the argument to be made that with the advance in weather forecasting services and technology, we just have a better understanding and they’re more widely reported than they would have been previously,” he argues.

“I do agree that climate change does occur, but I think that it has always occurred. I think that humans do have an impact on climate change – however, they aren’t greatest influence.

“I think that natural variabilities certainly play a major role in the climate that we experience. For example there seems to be a correlation between solar cycles and the particular type of winter conditions that we’ve experienced across Ireland.”

Cathal explains that at the moment we’re almost at the bottom of one particular solar cycle.

“It’s winter 2018/19 when it’s expected to reach the very bottom of the solar cycle, but it is extremely low at the moment in terms of solar flares and the last time we experienced such a low spell was in 2009/10 when we experienced an exceptional cold spell in the midlands.

“That’s just one example of how climate can have a drastic effect but by national variabilities, it’s called climate forcing. Then we have volcanic eruptions in Iceland that can cause a nullifying effect in terms of temperature, then there’s natural variability cycles, called Milankovitch Cycles, which is the shift in overall orbit of earth and its tilt of the axis towards or further away from the sun, which can have the effect of causing ice ages. These have occurred since the year dot.

“Global warming was the original term, and that’s changed to climate change and the reason for that is because we see some areas are cooling while some areas are warming. There is more warming than cooling, but one of the areas that is actually cooling is up in the North Atlantic which affects us. And I suppose over the last couple of winters we can maybe testify to that.

“There’s still a lack of hard evidence to conclude that a certain area of cooling over the North Atlantic is directly related to the severe weather that we’ve experienced here, however.

“Regarding the wintry conditions here, I think it’s because of the location of the jet stream. There’s a particular theory out there at the moment that the location of jet stream has been affected by the melting of the Arctic ice caps, which has impact on sea surface temperatures, which can affect the exact positioning of the jet stream.

“What’s happening at the moment with the colder temperatures we’re experiencing is we’re seeing a meandering of the jet stream.

“Normally the jet stream is more in a linear fashion, but at the moment the system has buckled and disconnects, and then we don’t see our usual flow of westerly or south westerly winds, and instead easterly outbreaks.

“It’s early to say whether conditions are likely to become so severe that we need to become exceptionally worried, but certainly it’s something to keep an eye on.”

• To help Cathal expand his weather service, you can donate to his GoFundMe page via a link available on the Midland Weather Channel.