Episode 6 Weather Watchers with Barra Best

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."

A witticism attributed to writer Mark Twain.

And we do talk about the weather, a lot,

but there's a good reason - the weather affects our lives

every day, from the clothes we wear, to the games we play.

And, while we can't do anything about the weather,

we can certainly do things with it.

Strangford Lough in County Down.

It's beautiful in all seasons, especially in autumn,

when tens of thousands of brent geese take advantage of tail

winds to carry them from their summer breeding

grounds in Canada to their winter retreat in Ireland.

I've come to Castle Espie to meet up with John McCullough,

and to see these remarkable birds for myself.

You have a lot of birds here, but I suppose the big attraction

-this time of year is the brent geese.

-Very, very much so.

These birds here that we see, they're in the zoo side of things

at Castle Espie, but when you step beyond the gate here,

you're looking at the wild.

You're right out there, there's thousands of birds

that have migrated a long journey to be here,

so that's really what draws the crowds at this time of the year.

How many are we talking?

A couple of weeks ago we did a count of 6,000 plus,

just in the north end of Strangford Lough, but we reckon about now,

you could be talking about 20,000 birds right across.

And they've flown quite a distance from the Canadian Arctic,

-all the way here.

-Yeah, they've flown right

the way down, over the southern tip of Greenland.

They stop off in Iceland, because they need

it as a staging ground, they need to feed up there.

Then they make their way down into Strangford Lough.

And they're, I suppose literally, coming here for a vacation,

-away from the cold.

-Of course they are.

-This is their Caribbean.

-Yeah, it is.

It's getting dark up there, it's getting cold up there,

they're getting hungry up there,

so the first thing they want to do is get here,

relax, and fill their stomachs.

-That's it. That's all they're doing.

-Fair play to them.

This is a lovely little sheltered bay here.

It's got plenty of eelgrass in it.

This green stuff that you can see, Barra,

this is what they're here to eat.

So this bay holds quite a few brent geese.

When the tide's coming in, you'll get them flying over this pier,

and they'll drop in here.

It's a massive number of the birds that come here.

Yeah, completely significant.

I mean, brent geese put Strangford Lough on the map.

This is why this area is so protected,

because you're talking about nearly the entire world's

population of this bird, that comes here.

It's extremely significant.

They're really relying on a strong north-westerly wind to get here.

Oh, very much so.

If the wind is blowing in the wrong direction on migration,

they'll not move. There's no point.

They've only so much energy, so what they need is north-westerlies.

If you can imagine they're in the Arctic,

they need to be pushed from behind.

They're not going to fly into any southerlies coming up, because why?

You'll expend so much energy.

How long will they stay here once they arrive?

Well, they arrive in the autumn, and they'll stay right through

the winter, and then when we start hitting April or May,

round about the time we would consider hopefully

to be spring time here, they're going to be turning round

and heading back up towards the Arctic.

There's plenty of truth in the saying that

"a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," and I'm going to

attempt to get up close, nose to beak, with the resident geese.

I think I've got somebody a little bit hungry,

but absolutely magnificent bird.

It's weird, you kind of expect them to bite your hand.

'No biting the hand that feeds you, now.'

No, no more? All done?

As evening falls over Strangford Lough, the brent geese feed

and settle down for the night in their winter home.

I like my weather like I like my tea - not too hot, not too cold,

and the Gulf Stream does that for me, it regulates the temperature.

How does it do it?

Well, it's the strong, swift, warm Atlantic current,

that goes along the east coast of the United States,

and makes Ireland warmer than it would be otherwise.

A small tendril of the Gulf Stream, called the North Atlantic Drift,

comes towards Ireland, and this warms the surrounding waters.

Think of it like our own hot water bottle.

Also, thanks to the Gulf Stream, the north coast of Ireland picks

up consistent amounts of Atlantic swell.

People say to me, "Barra, I remember summer last year.

"It was on a Tuesday."

We have some of the best beaches in Europe, but it's very rare that

someone feels brave or optimistic enough to go into the sea.

But one man who's not afraid to look into the eye of a storm is

big wave surfer, Al Mennie.

Al has surfed all over the world in search of that perfect wave,

and weather is the hinge on which surfing depends.

A surfing globetrotter Al may be, but he caught his first wave

closer to home.

I got into surfing through being at the beach at Castlerock,

at the age of nine.

My brother and I surfed, my mum and dad,

we've always had boats around the family

and that sort of thing, so it seemed normal to be in the sea.

And when lots of people think of surfing, they picture

Australia, they picture California,

but we have people coming from all around the world to surf

here in the north coast, and along the west coast.

Yeah, we have excellent waves here,

it's just that it's colder here, obviously.

It's wild in the winter, but we do have very good waves,

especially the north coast, with a prevailing wind direction in the

south-west, so that's the best wind, because it blows offshore

and cleans up the surface of the waves.

When I'm thinking about the weather, I'm thinking about

when the next batch of rain is going to come in from the Atlantic, but

when you're thinking about surfing,

you're looking at systems around the globe, almost.

Yeah, well, in order for us to get surf here on the north coast,

we need weather to happen in other parts of the world, to send

those waves to us.

There's a misconception where people think, "It's really windy

"by the sea today, there'll be really good waves for surfing."

That's not how it is, that's not the kind of waves we look for.

In particular, I look for these storms,

these deep depressions starting to form down in the Atlantic, over

towards the Caribbean, and, believe it or not,

if we see hurricanes down there, we're sitting here going,

"There's going to be waves in seven to ten days."

Al's taking me round the coast now,

to check out a few of his favourite surfing spots.

What's the highest wave you've surfed off the coast of Ireland?

-Probably over 60 feet.

-Impressive.

Was that during a storm of some sort?

Yeah, that was actually back in 2008.

At the time it was the biggest recorded swell in the Atlantic.

With all this technology, we can see all these different swells in

the wind forecast, and everything coming together, and predict

where the waves are coming to.

Then, whenever they come to the coast, we've got wave buoys in location.

A wave buoy is basically a measuring device on the ocean,

and it's moving with the swell and with the wind,

and it's recording all this data.

So when I log into the internet and I see these wave buoys,

and it's telling me there's a 25 foot swell, and a wave period

of 15 seconds, I know what's coming, so that's very valuable information.

And sometimes, Al finds big waves in unexpected locations.

MUSIC: Riptide by Vance Joy

And sometimes it's Al who provides the photo opportunity.

We're at the Giant's Causeway, one of our most popular tourist

destinations to see all the rocks, but you like to come here to surf.

-How dangerous is it?

-This is one of the most dangerous

places you can go surfing, and I would not advise it to anybody.

It's dangerous here, because of all the rocks, in particular.

It just gets battered here.

It's an extremely rough, wild part of the coast.

And these are the charts that you use to figure out where to go?

This is an Admiralty chart, it shows the depth of the ocean

and various currents and things on it.

If you look here, this is where we are at the minute.

Uh-huh.

I look at the depth of the sea, and then I look at what direction

we're going to need for swell, and various things like that.

So, if you imagine I'm sitting out here normally, on a big day,

just around where we are.

I'm looking for a big storm, way up in the North Atlantic,

so the winds are kept away from us, it's all crazy chaos out there.

It pushes these swells in towards the coast like that, and we've got

a local weather system, which is giving us light offshore winds.

That's ideal, to push off against the swell, to clean it all up.

-Smoothing out the waves?

-Smoothing it out.

And if you look at these massive cliffs, they kill the wind.

So if it's a really strong windy day, say it's 25mph, that

big cliff will knock that wind out of it, so it could be down to 10.

So in here it could be nice and smooth and clean,

despite out there being very rough.

Al's enthusiasm is infectious, and I certainly wasn't going to let

one of the best surfers in the world go without a lesson.

MUSIC: I Get Knocked Down by Joey Ramone

OK, it isn't the 60-foot wave,

but it's still a huge achievement for me.

Let's get the latest on the weather forecast now...

While Al's looking at the bigger picture and what the weather is

doing out in the Atlantic, most of us

want to find out what the weather is doing closer to home.

People no longer want just a forecast -

they want a now-cast, an immediate,

real-time report on the weather, and you already help us do that,

by posting photographs on Twitter, Facebook,

and on the BBC Weather Watchers website.

It looks like a great day

in the Orchard County of Armagh.

Well-named, today more than 4,000 acres of Armagh is dedicated

to apple-growing,

and I'm at one of the orchards today to meet up with Philip Troughton.

Philip, looking around, it seems summer's been kind to you.

-Is this a normal crop?

-This is a late-flowering variety.

It has actually cropped reasonably well. In fact, very well.

There's really two reasons why we grow apples in County Armagh.

One is tradition. There's a tradition of apple-growing

in the area.

The other is climate and, because of the influence of Lough Neagh,

there's a small area between the rivers Blackwater and Bann,

where we get slightly less early spring frosts.

Early spring frosts is what totally determines how many apples or

what crop we grow.

So it really is that weather-dependent for you?

It is totally weather-dependent.

Could you do this anywhere else in Northern Ireland?

There's no apples grown any further north than the southern

shore of the lough.

In the UK, there are no apples grown north of Birmingham,

and we're at a level with Stranraer or southern Scotland.

So we're probably 200 miles further north than

apples are grown in the UK.

So literally its own little micro-climate?

It's a very little micro-climate,

which just happens to suit this area.

How does the weather influence the taste of your apples?

The sunshine will increase the sugar levels of the apples,

and the increased sugar levels allow us to make cider.

It's the sugars in the apples that make the alcohol.

These eating apples will be pressed into juice,

and that juice can either be pure apple juice,

or it can be blended off and made into cider.

That takes us about six months. There's other by-products.

Whenever we make the cider,

we can change that into apple cider vinegar.

Whenever these apples are pressed,

the by-product of that is basically dry apple.

And that, we can send for cattle feed.

And that actually increases milk production?

In a dairy herd, apples will increase milk production.

It would be a bit like the spring flush of grass.

'If an apple a day does actually keep the doctor away,

'then I've come to the right place.'

'Weather affects everything we do, in work and play.

'Clouds, clear skies, wind, rain,

'and sunshine all have their part to play.

'What we really need now is a perfect day.'

Put your elbows in, watch your coat!

FLAME-THROWER ROARS

-Is this why you have no hair, it's burned off?

-Occupational hazard.

FLAME-THROWER ROARS

Hands off for one second. Hands off.

And we're off. Fantastic.

We're just going to gently float down, and we'll

see what's happening with the wind.

-It's remarkably smooth, isn't it?

-Yeah, it is.

-Wow.

It's just so peaceful up here. You can barely hear a sound.

In fact, the only sound is from the flame-thrower that's keeping us

up in the air.

FLAME-THROWER ROARS

This is a lovely, smooth ride, but

you can't help but feel a little bit helpless.

Yeah, well, to a certain extent, we are.

The wind's taking us in a direction, but I'm controlling the height.

That's the important thing, so we're still off the ground.

MUSIC: Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

It's not often we get perfect weather like this.

What do you look for?

Weather conditions in Northern Ireland maybe aren't the most

suitable, but we need steady, still conditions like tonight.

Winds, eight knots maximum.

Five is ideal, like we're having here tonight, and no rain.

So our typical unpredictable Irish weather is not great for you.

Why would you want to balloon here?

Well, they always say, if you learn to balloon in Northern Ireland,

you'll be able to fly anywhere.

If you look down around you, the fields are small,

there's a lot of electric wires and a lot of animals about,

so it's fun and it's good activity, because

there's a wee bit of thinking needed, rather than

having big 40-acre fields that anybody could put the balloon into.

So now we're drifting down, but you're controlling this?

Yes, I'm controlling the descent down,

and we're going to go over the forest here.

And what you'll find is we've picked up in speed slightly,

because it's a bit cooler over the forest.

One thing about the weather and the temperature is,

the sun warms up the ground at different rates, so therefore

a ploughed field would be different to a grass field to an actual...

FLAME-THROWER DROWNS SPEECH

MUSIC: Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong

Tonight is great. If you look at any of the trees, even the

wind turbines, very little movement on them. But there's enough movement

here to actually move us across the air.

Your ideal flight time, then, is around dawn and dusk.

Yeah, if you're in there ready to take off from the field

just as day breaks in the mornings, it's perfect timing.

And then, in the evenings, you have to be down by sunset,

so you're talking maybe an hour, an hour and a half, before sunset.

Is it because the thermals during the day can cause you problems?

Yeah, the thermals are a literal unpredictability to a balloon,

because it'll move from one thermal to the next thermal,

and that's not good because you're losing full control of the balloon.

At the minute, we have control

because we're going with the wind in the one direction.

From this height, I can appreciate Mother Nature in all her splendour.

Anywhere in our part of the world can make your senses dance,

or sing, if the weather's right.

Take a walk in the hazy sunshine, but enjoy it,

because the clouds floating above might not have a silver lining.

Till next time, bye-bye.