Ireland to enjoy widespread sunshine
The weekend and coming week will bring widespread sunshine across Ireland with temperatures gradually increasing as winds fall light.
Sunshine will return everywhere on Friday afternoon and evening following scattered outbreaks of rain across Munster, Leinster, and south Connacht.
The settled conditions are the result of high pressure becoming established and rooted to the northeast of Ireland and Britain.
High pressure will build closer to or over Ireland by midweek next week, resulting in winds falling light and the risk of overnight frosts increasing in inland locations. Overnight fog may be slow to clear in places.
Temperatures will be highest in the western half of Ireland, ranging from 16-18°C.
Temperatures will rise from 11 to 13°C in eastern and southern coastal counties this week to 14-16°C next week as easterly winds ease.
The past week has been exceptionally dry. Rainfall amounts ranged from 1.4 mm at Oak Park in Carlow (10% of its seasonal average) to 13.8 mm at Malin Head in Donegal (70% of average).
The highest amount of sunshine was recorded at Johnstown Castle in Wexford, with a total of 53.4 hours.
The warmest day of 2025 to date was recorded on Thursday at Shannon Airport in County Clare. The mercury level rose to 19.1 C as all of Ireland enjoyed long spells of sunshine.
Shannon beat the previous high of the year by just 0.1 C. Mount Dillon in County Roscommon recorded 19 C on Monday.
Elsewhere on Thursday, Valentia in County Kerry recorded 18.4 C and Mace Head in Galway saw a temperature of 17.6 C.
