Umbrellas as parasols at the weekend? Good weather forecast

The summer was officially a stinker, but there’ll be some reprieve at least for music fans who’ll be rocking out in dry, sunny weather this weekend.

Met Éireann’s seasonal climate report for summer makes for grim reading, with confirmation that June, July and August were colder and wetter than average.

Most places were a degree cooler than normal, dipping to 1.7 below average in Athenry which recorded a mean temperature of just 13 degrees.

Thermometers in Dublin came nearest to registering expected values for the time of year, and the country's highest temperature came on June 30th when the mercury hit 25.6 degrees in the Phoenix Park.

The capital was also the driest area, avoiding the fate endured by certain parts of the south which reported 200 per cent of normal totals for rainfall during July.

That said, spare a thought for the people of Knock, who received a measly 291 hours of sunlight over the course of the entire summer compared with almost 500 hours at Dublin Airport (which also happened to record its lowest summer temperature in 73 years at 0.7 degrees).

Warm days

To top it all off seasonal wind speeds were also extremely high nationwide, with gusts of up to 120km/h at Malin Head – that station's highest seasonal wind speed in nearly three decades.

It was bad, but a measurement index used by Met Éireann shows that the summer weather was still some way better than that of three years ago, with 2012 still holding the dubious mantle of having the worst summer in the 50 years since reliable records began.

As for the coming weekend, Friday will be largely dull and overcast but dry, with daytime temperatures broadly lying between 14 and 16 degrees before dropping into the single digits on Friday night.

Electric Picnic campers in Stradbally should have no need for the wellies on Saturday and Sunday, and umbrellas may find a secondary use as parasols with extended sunny spells expected over the latter half of the weekend.

The still, cloudless conditions mean temperatures may dip to six degrees on Saturday night. But we may be headed for one last burst of reasonable weather on Monday and Tuesday with values of 17 and 18 degrees ahead of an anticipated wet front approaching from the west.