With mid-summer now passed, you'd have been lucky to see a ray of sunlight in Ireland on the day itself.
There was some argumnetation over whether the 21st of June this year was in fact the longest day - it being a leap year and all that.
However it seems like we experienced a genuine heatwave in Ireland at the end of May. There is no universally accepted definition of a heatwave - but the World Meteorological Organization says it occurs when the highest temperature on each of five consecutive days is 5C warmer than the average maximum. It sure was hot out there. As the temperatures reached nearly 30 degrees one was perfectly entitled to ignore the weather lore of old and cast a clout before May was out.
Note: The word 'clout', although archaic, is straightforward. Since at least the early 15th century 'clout' has been used variously to mean 'a blow to the head', 'a clod of earth or (clotted) cream' or 'a fragment of cloth, or clothing'. It is the last of these that is meant in 'cast a clout'. This was spelled variously spelled as clowt, clowte, cloot, clute. So there ya have it.
Funny how June is a more mixed bag weather wise – with floods, sunshine and even the odd very large tornado – one a kilometre high was spotted on the Inishowen peninsula. What next, one might reasonably ask.
