Want to find the Loch Ness monster? Best try at noon on a sunny August day!

She’s proved more than elusive to Nessie hunters over the years.

But apparently the best time to spot the Loch Ness monster is on a sunny August day, according to university researchers.

A study by St Andrews University used a database of Nessie sightings to translate anecdotes about the creature into data and identify patterns of encounters.

The researchers found that sightings spike during the summer months when weather conditions are ‘excellent’, with the most taking place during August – at around noon.

The number of people claiming to have seen the monster dips significantly during the winter months, in the evenings and at lunchtimes, and the vast majority of sightings take place when conditions are calm and there is no, or very little, wind.

A team from the university’s Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling collaborated on the study with Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness Project in Drumnadrochit.

They analysed 1,433 alleged Nessie encounters from 1850 onwards, including 641 first-hand reports.

This computer-generated image shows a much more ferocious version of Nessie

The average duration of the encounters was ‘surprisingly long’ at four-and-a-half minutes, suggesting that ‘contrary perhaps to popular belief’ such sightings were not ‘generated by misperception or misinterpretation caused by a brief glimpse of an object’.

While anecdotes of Nessie sightings are often dismissed by scientists, the research team said this study, published in the Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education, demonstrates how, when carefully assessed, numerous anecdotes can provide meaningful data. 

Dr Charles Paxton, of St Andrews University, said: ‘We cannot reach conclusions about Loch Ness Monsters from these collected accounts, but we can draw insights about the wider population of Loch Ness Monster reports.’

Last week the first Nessie sighting of the year was reported. 

Images showed a ‘black mass’ under the water. It appeared for several minutes in ‘absolutely perfect conditions’ at Dores Beach.