According to New Zealander Ken Ring, who operates the succesful www. predictweather. com website from his Auckland home 14,000 miles away, we have a rainy summer ahead.

By monitoring the position of the moon and the gravitational effects it has on the earth, Ring believes his methods of predicting the weather are more accurate than conventional methods.

"It should stay sunny but cool from this weekend until it rains from about 5 to 21 June. From 21 June to 1 July should be fine and mild but will probably not break heat records. The rest of the holiday season is likely to be disappointing and you can expect a long wet patch between 12 July to 25 September. The best advice I can give is to take holidays from now till 4 June, or between 20 June and 12 July."

If you are going to take a short break in Ireland later in the summer, Ring advises you to go to Down from 14 to 20 August. "At this time Down should be drier than anywhere else in the country as other counties may receive intermittent showers, " he said.

Meanwhile, Eric Dempsey of Birds Ireland said, "We monitor rare and unusual birds and we have noticed a very strange and unusual occurence this week. I received a report that over 60 Brent geese are still on the coast in Co Louth.

As these birds breed in Arctic Canada, they should have left Ireland weeks ago. I have never heard of a sighting of these birds in Ireland at this time of year so I wonder if they have an insight into the future weather." It could mean that they are confident enough about low temperatures in Louth to hang out there for another little while.

Alone amongst those who offered a prediction, Margaret Neylon, astrologer with the Sunday Tribune Magazinewas optimistic about the summer weather. "The Disting Moon is an old Nordic weather predictor which indicates that the weather in your area on 25 January will be similar for Summer Solstice on 21 June, " she says.

"I have followed this for the last few years and it is eerily correct. I predict that from mid-June the weather is going to be much drier and we may even have a heat wave."

Leaving astrology aside, Neylon also suggested that the tadpoles might offer an insight into the weather. "If tadpole eggs are laid in the centre of a pond there will be a good summer because the eggs need water to survive, so if it's going to be dry they need to be where the water is. If it's wet they can survive at the outer edges."

However, Dr Ferdia Marnell, who works for the National Parks and Wildlife Service and has studied frogs for years said: "Frogs are very bad at predicting weather as anyone who has monitored them will have found frog spawn high and dry. Frogs can find the warmest part of a pond to have their spawn in but I don't think that provides any indication that they know what the weather will be like."

Brendan McWilliams, who writes the 'Weather Eye' column in the Irish Times said, "My best advice to you as regards anyone who might tell you what the summer will be like is . . . don't believe them! Scientifically, the best advice available is that from the British Met Office."

Joanna Donnelly from Met Eireann stated, "We do not predict the weather over a long period ahead such as the summer. "We can say that it is going to be cool on Sunday and Monday. By the time Monday comes around there will only be highs of 15 or 16 degrees and after that it should improve and get milder again."

LACK OF SUN A BOON TO TRAVEL AGENTS

THE recent spate of terrible weather has resulted in Irish people rushing to book holidays abroad for the summer, according to two of Ireland's biggest travel agents.

A spokesman for Budget Travel said that last Monday was one of their busiest days so far in 2006, with people clambering to get out of the country. "When you get a weekend of awful weather like we did last weekend, people just want to leave, " he said.

"That's definitely what happened last Monday. It was the biggest day we've had in a long time."

Michael Stein of Stein Travel said his company had also noticed a substantial rise in business recently. "In the last two weeks, since the weather took a serious turn for the worse, we've been seriously busy, " he said.

"The last 10 days have been phenomenal, and I believe that we have the weather to thank for that."