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Sometimes, believe it or not, human beings are far better at gauging the weather than technology. Hi. I'm Dave Thurlow and this is the Weather Notebook. Commentator Chuck Krueger, who lives on Cape Clear Island in Ireland, tells about one elderly woman's weather observations, which are indespensible to the country's search and rescue operations.

My Irish island neighbor's connection to weather reporting began before she entered primary school. She recalls her Uncle, with fishnets spread beside the house in which she now lives, teasing her and saying, "Kathleen, go out and tell us the weather." When she'd return, she'd report, "There is no weather." They taught her that when she'd first step outside her left ear was East, her right ear the Fastnet Lighthouse. She soon learned to tell when a storm was coming.

Now, almost seventy years later, she still checks the weather daily. Sometimes she calls Irish Lights, the government agency that controls all Irish Lighthouses, before their weekly call to her.

What assistance can she provide a state-of-the-art organisation? Despite the automation and computerization of the rescue service industry, she furnishes on-the-spot weather analyses. Once the Fastnet Lighthouse became fully automated in 1989, Irish Lights no longer had a Lighthouse Keeper to telephone regarding the exact state of the weather and whether a helicopter could safely lower a man to the Fastnet's pad. Therefore, they ring Kathleen before leaving their distant mainland station and learn the height of the seas, the degree of visibility, the gustiness of the wind. Only then do they make their decision. They normally ring on Tuesday or Wednesday between 8:00 and 8:30 am. After the first call, she steps outside, walks up a little hill, scans the sea and lighthouse. Five minutes later, they call again, and she gives her report. And has saved the servicing helicopter many an ill-timed trip.

Many thanks today to commentatory Chuck Krueger, a writer who lives in Ireland. The Weather Notebook is underwritten by the National Science Foundation and Subaru of America.