The legendary Evelyn Cusack announced her shock retirement from RTE and national weather forecaster Met Eireann on Thursday.

The veteran forecaster began working for Met Eireann in 1981, where she worked for 42 years after studying Maths and Physics in UCD. When she joined there were no satellites or internet. "We used to get charts on electrostatic paper, and it would take half an hour for a few charts to come in," she told RTE.

Throughout her career which spanned three decades, Cusack achieved many successes, her most prominent becoming Head of Forecasting in 2017.

She described 2017 and 2018 as her 'annus horribilis of weather', a phrase made famous by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in a speech delivered in 1992, a year marked by scandal and disaster for the British royal family. This was due to Storm Ophelia, Storm Emma and the Beast from the East taking place. Cusack revealed that at the time she was 'was looking forward to a nice summer'.

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— Met Éireann (@MetEireann) June 1, 2023

It was, in fact, so nice there was a drought. "And then Bray started to go on fire, and we were in the NECG (National Emergency Coordination Group) again because there was a water shortage," she recalled. "So, then I thought that's it... but there was one more sting in the tail."

Cusack said she was at the Ploughing Championships in September and there was a Status Yellow wind warning in place. "I looked and thought oh, around 80-90km/h winds, a huge, tented village and 100,000 people." She recommended that the event be cancelled. "It was a huge deal then ... it seemed like an enormous thing to do. I mean, I closed it down. But then, thankfully, just professionally for me, the winds whipped up and everything was flattened."

Cusack believes that AI will play a pivotal role in weather forecasting going forward. "Met Éireann is putting in a professorship in a university which will be announced shortly, and AI development is to be part of that," she said. Emphasising that she's, "really grateful to have been working this long and to feel so well and healthy," Evelyn said she's excited to spend time with the Roving Soles Hillwalking group.