Our winter so far has provided us with an array of weather types – and mostly bad types and I’m afraid it’s ‘given down’ to continue tonight with an Orange Warning with strong winds throughout and even strengthening through Monday to a height in the afternoon.
You will still hear the odd person, while discussing the weather, using the old phrase ‘given down’ as in: there’s strong wind given down for tonight. I remember asking about that one time and was given down a very plausable explanation for its use: Fadó, fadó radio sets were complicated contraptions with wires and knobs that turned from station to station and wet batteries that sometimes leaked acid and so they had to be kept high on a shelf on the wall and well over the heads of children of all ages.Generally it was kept high enough so that it was withing reach of only a fully grown adult.
Apart from that at all, the buying of a radio set in those far-off days was a major investment and not something one would leave lying around for all to fiddle with. So you could imagine that everything that came out of set, news, weather music and all was given down. It is only with weather forecasting that the old phrase stuck though – and only with this you’d still hear it used occasionally today.
Kerry County Council is advising everyone to take heed of a Status Orange wind warning for counties including Kerry which has been issued by Met Éireann.
Met Éireann is forecasting strong winds for the county from 10pm tonight and through tomorrow which the windiest period expected on Monday afternoon.
The council is advising motorists to drive with care on roads and to watch out for debris and fallen branches and is asking all property owners to secure any items or structures liable to damage during strong winds.
Met Éireann Weather Warning
Code Level Orange: Southwest to west winds will reach mean speeds between 65 and 80 km/h with gusts between 110 and 130 km/h during Sunday night and through Monday. Winds will peak during Monday afternoon and evening and will be at their strongest along the coasts.
Valid from 22:00 Sunday 31-January-2016 until 23:59 Monday 1-February-2016
