It is the beginning of the silly season, which in Germany they call the Sommerloch, the "summer hole".
It is a time when people rush to pack a picnic lunch, brave the polluting traffic, find the nearest stretch of ocean, and stake out a patch of sand on which to surrender themselves to the volatility of our Irish summer. At times it is pleasant; sometimes, however, no sooner has one arrived at the beach than, Willows whiten, as- pens quiver; Little breezes dusk and shiver. One suffers the chill of the sea breeze.
A sea breeze occurs most readily in sunny conditions when there is little wind elsewhere. One might reasonably hope, for example, that the warm conditions which pertained in one's garden in the morning might be replicated later in the day near the coast a few miles away - but this is often not the case.
There can develop a chilling wind from the sea - not quite cold perhaps, but intrusive enough to make one regret one's ill-considered rush to the sea-shore.
The sea breeze occurs because of a contrast as the day progresses between the temperatures over land and sea. In the early morning there is little difference between the two; as the sun climbs higher, however, soil and rock quickly absorb its warmth, and heat the overlying air.
Warm air rises, resulting in what meteorologists call convective currents - columns of air bubbling upwards, whose presence is often betrayed by the presence of small cumulus clouds.
The actual motions of the atmosphere are complex, but the ultimate effect is a net upward transport of air; rather more air goes up under the cumulus clouds than comes down in the clear spaces in between. This upward loss over the warm land is replaced by a current of air blowing shorewards from the sea, drawn in horizontally across the coastline - the sea breeze.
The reason for its chilly nature becomes apparent when you recall that air takes its temperature from the surface over which it flows; air flowing towards you over a water surface, which at this time of the year may have a temperature in the region of 12 or 13 degrees, must inevitably feel cool in conditions when the air temperature might otherwise be in the region of 20 to 25 degrees.
But at least the sea breeze is an ephemeral phenomenon. As the temperature contrast between land and sea decreases towards late evening, the breeze dies away, the crowds of people disappear, and the beach reassumes its customary summer air of calm tranquillity.