Warm weather poised to continue

The glorious weather of the last week is to continue with a few small caveats.

There has some cloud and rain in south Munster today, but the rest of the country has been enjoying the benefit of the continuing sunshine.

There will be some cloud and patchy rain tomorrow night and into Wednesday morning, but it will then clear up and there will a return to the nice weather of late from Thursday and through the Bank Holiday.

Met Éireann forecaster Vincent O'Shea said the weather towards the latter half of the week would be "less hot" as he put it that recently, but it will still be above average with temperatures of between 17 and 21 degrees.

The continuing good weather augers well for a very busy bank holiday weekend particularly Bloom in the Phoenix Park, the Forbidden Fruit festival nearby in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham and the Bavaria City Racing around the streets of Dublin.

The top temperature at the weekend was recorded in Belmullet, Co Mayo, which had a high of 26 degrees on Saturday, a record for May. A temperature of 25.5 degrees at Shannon Airport was also a record for May.

Sun worshippers enjoying the day at the canal near Baggot Street. Photograph: Cyril Byrne/Irish Times

After an extremely wet and cold start to the month, the recent hot and dry weather has dried out the ground considerably and soil deficit levels are current at 30mms.

However, Mr O'Shea said it was well short of the 50mms to 60mms level that would signal a partial drought.