If you visit, it will not rain.

Today I am taking keyboard in hand (literally – I have an iPad) to discuss the weather in Northern Ireland.

Yesterday, I asked a contractor who was working on our YSA building when the last really good summer was.

He replied, “Oh, that would have been about 25 years ago. It happened on a Thursday.”

It rains here. A lot. I am not making this up. I have never seen rain like this in my entire life, two years of which were spent in Belgium, where they claim it rains somewhere in the country every day. Which it does. But not like this.

There is an old saying here, “May the rain fall softly on your face.” Notice that there is nothing along the lines of may the sun shine once in a while or may you see blue sky before you die. No, the emphasis is on the fact that it is going to rain and while that happens, may it gently caress your face rather than slap it silly.

According to the Met Office (the UK’s official National Weather Service) Northern Ireland averages about 2200 millimetres of rainfall per year. For those of you who graduated from San Juan High School, this is about 86.6 inches of rain, or not quite two and one half yards of water from the sky! Every year!

Another way of looking at it is the number of days where it rains. The Met Office told me that since 1971, in Northern Ireland, the average number of days per year where it rains more than 1 millimetre is 240. This means it rains, on average, about two out of every three days.

Historically, most of the rain falls in the winter. However, this year, we experienced the wettest June in recorded weather history.

One evening this past June, I was in a high council meeting in Belfast while my companion was teaching institute across town. It rained so hard that Belfast flooded extensively. Manhole covers were blown off of storm drains all over the city. I was unable to drive back home that evening for quite a while. Even then, I was only able to reach home because I drove out of town and came back to Belfast from another direction from out in the country.

As I drove along, water was rushing everywhere. Homes and businesses were flooded. It was an incredible example of what happens when it rains so much that there is no place for the water to run.

The streets on the hills of Belfast turned into rivers. Water was forced up through storm drains and shot several feet in the air. For a boy from Blanding, where it rains at least once a year, most years, it was truly amazing.

One week ago today, we were looking out the window during 60 mph wind gusts watching buckets of water pour from the sky. In 24 hours, it rained 100 millimetres. For those of you who graduated from Monticello High School, that is almost 4 inches, which is more than the average rainfall here for the entire month of September.

We took some missionaries up to the North Antrim Coast today to see Giant’s Causeway. It was cold and windy. It rained before we got there. It rained on the way home. It also rained after we got back home.

Here is the incredible thing about all this. Three of our children, three sets of friends and one of my brothers have visited us. During all of these visits, we experienced mostly sunny, cloud-free, clear blue skies. If it rained, it was while we were in the car and really did not inhibit anything we did.

Someone asked one of our sons how he liked Northern Ireland. I heard him respond, “My Dad keeps telling us how much it rains here. I’m beginning to think he is a liar.”

I am not! We have just discovered by experience that the key to good weather here is to have someone visit you from America. I know this is not a scientifically acceptable sample, but 100% of our visitors from home have experienced epic blue skies and little, if any, rain.

One of our YSA called me today and said that I needed to contact our family and tell them to come back to Northern Ireland as soon as possible.

I agreed with him but asked him why.

He said that whenever any of our family or friends came to see us that the weather always turns perfect!

I cannot explain it; I just know it works. Therefore, please come see us. We could use the sunshine.

Elder Blickenstaff 

There is a reason why it is so green on this island.

Not everything is green but everything is beautiful.

 Even the coastline is green.

Proof that visitors who are in love bring blue skies with them.

Senior missionary couples just look so much better in front of a castle.

We found Orthanc but Saruman was not home. He’s also not a YSA 

so we probably won’t go back.

We found the rainbow but by the time we got to the end, the pot o’ gold 

was nowhere to be found.