Week ahead should be dry but cloudy

The good news is that the next few days should be mainly dry, thanks to the Azores High, the Atlantic pressure system whose movement northwards during the summer months brings sunny weather to Ireland. The bad news is that the Azores High is still not high enough.

The semi-permanent, anti-cyclonic region is now slightly north of the islands from which it takes its name, and creeping closer to us. But the best the meteorologists can say for the week ahead is that Ireland will be predominantly cloudy and dry.

As for your prospects of sunshine, the farther south you live the better.

Farther south than most are the participants in the Round Ireland Yacht Race, the first of whom rounded Fastnet yesterday evening, in "nice sailing conditions, but not that much wind", according to the organisers.

For those of us confined to land, the main effect of the Azores High will be that the weather fronts crossing the country this week will be "a lot weaker, and so carry a lot less rain", according to Met Éireann.

For farmers, the best of the drying will also be in the south. But of the general outlook, the most cheering thing a Met spokeswoman can say is that the next few days "shouldn't make it any worse" for silage harvesting and other farm activities.

Temperatures will stay in the mid to high teens. And this may be as good as it gets, because from next weekend a return to unsettled conditions seems likely.

May and June have been nearly as bad as we think, Met Éireann confirms. "But we get summers like this every 10 years or so," the spokeswoman added.

She also sounded a hopeful note, recalling that the sweltering summer of 1995 also got off to a bad start: "May and June weren't very good then either."