The long dry spell will gradually come to an end later next week, with a return of occasional rainfall, westerly winds, and cooler temperatures.

Sunday will bring widespread sunshine and temperatures in the high teens to mid-20s.

Monday will start dry and sunny everywhere, but scattered heavy showers, with localised thunderstorms, will spread across the southern half of Leinster in the afternoon before moving into North Munster by evening.

Heavy showers, along with some thundery activity, will become more widespread during Tuesday, with a risk of localised spot flooding. Parts of the west and northwest will likely remain dry throughout the day. Good sunny spells will form between showers.

Wednesday will bring a return to sunny, warm, and dry conditions as temperatures peak in the high teens to low 20s. Winds will slowly shift westerly during the day, leading to slightly cooler temperatures on the west coast than of late.

A gradual change will occur during Thursday as cloud spills into Atlantic coastal counties later in the afternoon.

Scattered outbreaks of light rain, associated with an Atlantic frontal system, will extend across Ireland during Friday, followed by scattered heavy showers on Saturday.

The remainder of May and the start of June will see occasional frontal systems or showery activity with moderate to fresh westerly winds at times, interspersed with dry periods — the best of which will be in the east and southeast.

Temperatures will also drop back to more seasonal values in the mid-teens.

Rainfall totals during the following week will be close to or slightly above average for the time of year along the Atlantic seaboard and inland west but will remain slightly below average in eastern and southeastern coastal counties.

Long-range weather models indicate that pressure will slowly rise during the first part of June, and temperatures may begin to recover.

With high pressure never too far away, there are signs that our weather could become more settled and warmer again by the end of the first week of June, in keeping with the tradition of sunshine breaking out for English Paper 1 of the Leaving Certificate examinations.

Weather Models

The latest output from the European (ECMWF) weather model for the next 16 days up to 2 June supports increasing rainfall totals. The ensembles model, which runs 50 forecast variations (perturbations) to account for uncertainties in input data, also indicates a gradual decrease in temperatures in the coming week.

Model data, which is taken from a sample location in the Midlands, highlights a drop in air pressure through the coming week followed by a slow rise in air pressure, suggesting high pressure may slowly build close to Ireland.

The red lines in the graphic suggest the average of all 50 forecast variations.