The warm, largely dry weather is set to continue over the coming days with Met Éireann forecasting temperatures of up to 26 degrees in parts of Ireland today and only a possibility of isolated showers in the southeast.
Temperatures in Dublin on Tuesday are expected to reach up to 22 degrees with moderate breezes making it a potentially busy day around beaches despite the schools having reopened in recent days. Slightly higher temperatures are forecast in the west and north.
There is, however, the possibility of some thunder over the course of the day in parts of the country, according to Met Éireann.
Temperatures this evening are set to range from 14 to 17 degrees across the regions.
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Wednesday is also expected to be warm with temperatures of up to 25 degrees forecast. It is expected to be cloudy in places, though, with the possibility again of isolated showers. These could become heavy overnight although the expectation is that it will remain generally dry
Met Éireann says that temperatures will remain in the low to mid-twenties into the weekend with a slight drop anticipated on Sunday, but it suggests that showers are increasingly likely to feature towards the weekend with things expected to cool down significantly next week when the outlook is said to be far more changeable and more rain is expected.
“It’s going to be arm for the next few days and nights due to slow moving low pressure system that’s feeding warm, tropical air from down around Spain, the Mediterranean towards us,” says meteorologist Rebecca Cantwell, who puts this week’s temperatures at around five degrees higher than normal for this time of year.
“It’s warm moist air that’s drying off as it comes further north and it’s bringing up for a nice warm temperatures although as the week goes on there’ll be a bit instability there’s the possibility of thundery downpours.
“There is some high pressure that’s around central Europe at the moment and that’s going to move further east. As it comes, the nice weather is going to break down a bit and we’ll see a bit more of what we’re used to at this time of year, maybe at the weekend or into next week, with rain and temperatures back down to normal again.”
In the meantime, the warm days maintain a trend established during the summer which Met Éireann has said was one of the five warmest on record.
The data is somewhat at odds with a widespread public perception of it having been a poor summer due to the amount of rain that has fallen.
Overall, however, the average summer temperature was 15.8 degrees, making it the hottest summer after 1995, 1976 and 2006. That average temperature of 15.8 degrees is almost identical to the summer of 2018.
This summer was 0.3 degrees warmer than last year despite the summer of 2022 having a few days that were some of the hottest ever recorded in Ireland.
June was the warmest on record in most places, with the average temperature for the month exceeding 16 degrees for the first time. July, however, was the wettest on record in many places with temperatures an average of between 0.6 and 0.8 degrees lower than normal.