@mcgoo: Up the west and f€€k the rest

@Stan: There are lights designed to counteract this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/house-garden/lighting/best-sad-lamps-light-therapy-seasonal-affective-disorder-lumie-how-to-treat-a6839106.html

@Stan: the dark and cold of our winters also causes people to crash their cars on the M50 way too frequently.. usually at 7.30am and 5pm.

@Stan: You should say that some people suffer unnecessarily from this recent condition (SAD) for once it is appreciated within context of your natural body clock it is possible to adjust to the dark period. Our ancestors naturally slowed down this time of the year just as people slow down in the evening as the daily body clock has its milestones -

https://aholdencirm.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/blog_150112biological-clock-660×422.png

The easiest way to transfer the idea that the body naturally adjusts to a seasonal clock is to look at the polar day/night cycle with its equivalent milestones of sunrise/noon/sunset/ midnight along with its associated polar dawn and twilight even though these pair last continuously for many weeks. It is presently polar twilight at the North pole before descending into polar night in the next few weeks and people at our latitudes feel this as the combination of daily and orbital motions reduce the amount of daylight.

It doesn’t help that Met Eireann try to obscure our natural body clock by insisting midwinter is not December 21st by creating a worthless notion of the meteorological seasons. All the artificial conveniences of heat and light interfere with the natural cycle and many people suffer on this account but with a few adjustments, what they are I don’t know, that suffering can be replaced by allowing the body to do its natural adjustment to an Irish winter.

*https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Biological_clock_human.svg/1200px-Biological_clock_human.svg.png

@Stan: stan, you should see Tromso if you think here is bad…. 6 long months there and missed the best part during the summer… Count yourself lucky a mhac

@Brown Boots: Having worked on Melkoya Island near Hammerfest in the summer it can be just as bad and some of the Irish lads had to take mild sedatives as the natural slowdown in the evening doesn’t happen, mainly because there is no evening. I think younger people can override their body clocks but with age that becomes much harder to do.

@Brown Boots: They get 3 months of 24 daylight in the summer

@Stan: Please don’t speak for everyone as if we are all of one mind. I hate summer and bright weather. I love the long, dark nights with short dull days of autumn & winter. And I know for a fact I’m not alone in this.

@Stan: Couldn’t agree more, just back from a fab week in Tenerife, but don’t know if it’s enough toi minimise the pain of seven or eight months without sun, not that we’ll see much during the Summer either.

@Stan: our ancestors collect enough in the harvest then locked themselves away for the winter (id do the same if i could afford it !!)

@Stan: That’s why Christmas was invented.

@Tom Reilly: Met Eireann website change the forecast every day. To make matters worse they often change the graphic of Ireland every few hours (depending on what they see out the window).

@TellingItAsItIs: weather changes all the time shock

@ed w: No more so than in Met Eireann’s graphics world. Today’s weather forecast can change today in Glasnevin. It’s like someone rushes into their graphics department and screams “Quick, change the graphic, it’s gone very cloudy outside!!”

@Tom Reilly: Hi all, from the Sunshine State. What’s winter?

@Tom Reilly: Exactly, they said it was going to be a gorgeous weekend, they haven’t a bleedin clue.

@Fank Pulman: a Storm a thousand miles away, named by the Americans after a Danish character in an English play, the sheer indignity of it all wha…

@Fank Pulman: Storm Dana and Bono would be a hurricane I’d say?

@Fank Pulman: Aye Che Guevara storm sounds good, will eventually blow itself out.

@Fank Pulman: ‘bono’, an occasional breeze blowing hot air.
‘McCourt’ a deep depression.
‘de Velara’ an Atlantic storm blowing in from America, that runs out of puff at the Irish sea.
‘Collins’ a mighty tempest that changes everything.
‘Neeson’ a mixed weather front with a particular set of spills.

@David Faherty: Yes , once it crosses the pond we name it Bridie .

@purple rain: or Gorry…