Unsettled weather ahead for rest of week

OUR BRIEF flirtation with sunshine will resume today but it looks like it’s all downhill for the rest of the week, according to Met Éireann.

Today will be bright and sunny with a few isolated showers, said Met Éireann weather forecaster Harm Luijkx.

It won’t be uncomfortably hot for mini-marathon runners, with highest temperatures of 13-16 degrees expected. It will be mildest in the west. However, rain will push in from the southwest this afternoon and evening. There will be outbreaks of rain tomorrow.

Wednesday will see some good sunny spells but there is a possibility of heavy, thundery showers and longer spells of rain in some places.

“It will be very unsettled for the rest of the week,” Mr Luijkx said, with heavy showers expected on Thursday and Friday.

The organisers of the Bloom gardening festival in Dublin’s Phoenix Park said they expected attendance figures to be up today because of the good weather.

Free shuttle bus transfers are running every 20 minutes from Heuston Station to the festival, which is at the visitor centre in the park. Additional surface parking has been made available for those planning to drive to the event.

The heavy rain failed to dampen the spirits of gardening enthusiasts at the festival yesterday, with almost 10,000 attending.

“Almost 55,000 to date have attended this year’s festival and we expect a strong attendance today on the last day of Bloom,” a spokeswoman said.

The gale force winds and driving rain that lashed the east coast yesterday morning made the rescue of two yachts more difficult. The boats were returning from a race on the Irish Sea but got into difficulty. They were brought to safety by the RNLI lifeboat stationed at Dún Laoghaire at about 8am.