A PART TIME lecturer in computer studies at London's South Bank University this week claimed an 83 per cent success rate at weather prediction up to 11 months in advance, using sunspots as the basis for his calculations.
Mr Piers Corbyn backs up his claims by betting £10,000 a year with William Hill bookmakers and he numbers among his clients Yorkshire Electricity and the smokeless fuel manufacturers Coalite.
The man in Met Eireann in Dublin was slightly sceptical but was willing to keep an open mind on the subject. "We don't do anything like that here" he said. "We don't do long range forecasting."
He tended to be sceptical on the use of sunspots, he continued, on the basis that if it was useful it would be done on a more widespread basis.
"On the face of it, there must be some way of figuring out long range forecasts from the behaviour of the sun", he mused.
Short range forecasts will be the primary concern this weekend. The crew of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy will be watching the skies as they prepare to stroll the streets of Dublin, wondering whether to stick with deck shoes and white shorts or to break out the oilskins and man the lifeboats. The 10,000 visitors to the ship will also be keeping a weather eye open.
The good news is that today should start bright and sunny but rain will be moving across from the west throughout the day and will reach the east coast some time later this evening, although it may hold off until after Tina Turner's encores in Croke Park. Tomorrow will be bright but not very warm and there will be some showers.
The man in the Met Eireann office was unwilling to predict any further than that, so perhaps it might be willing to consider some alternative measures.
For example, Mr Bill Foggit, of Thirsk in England, claims an 88 per cent long term success rate based on his studies of frogspawn, supplemented by pine cone observations and the movement of moles on his lawn. The late Mr Arthur Mackins, meanwhile, based his predictions on the length of spiders threads.
The Met Eireann man retained an open mind and was unwilling to dismiss these practices as mere superstition, although he took the view that evaluating them was quite difficult.
Instead, he continued to demonstrate a faith in science which would have gladdened the heart of Evangelista Torricelli, the probable inventor of the barometer and father of scientific weather prediction.
So Met Eireann is unlikely to be recruiting mole watchers, keeping an eye on pine cones for signs of activity or prodding spiders in the near future, then? "I think that's safe to say", he forecast.