Hot weather to return after a weekend of sunshine and showers

The summer is set to return next week after a brief hiatus which will bring rain across the country.

The weekend will be warm and close especially in the south and east with temperature highs of 24 degrees in the east and midlands.

However, heavy rain will cross the country on Saturday as downpours with thunder and lightning over Donegal and Northern Ireland. Heavy showers are expected again on Sunday but temperatures of 22 degrees forecast are forecast.

[ Europe heatwave: Temperature hits 40 degrees in UK for first time ]

[ This weekend is set to be a scorcher. Here’s how to keep exercising in a heatwave ]

It has been one of the driest Julys on record with just 6.3mms of rain at Met Éireann’s station at Johnston Castle in Co Wexford and at Dublin Airport. Average temperatures at the Phoenix Park for the month to date is 17.6 degrees, two degrees higher than normal. The Phoenix Park recorded the second highest temperature ever in Ireland on Monday with a high of 33.3 degrees.

Paul Howard: I never loved an animal as much as I loved Humphrey. For 13 and a half years, he was my constant companion

---

The most pimped concept in sport is heroism but Arthur Ashe was a hero

---

A week in Center Parcs in Longford: Standing in the forest, you feel the money draining gently out of your bank account

---

‘It’s the Mayo supporter in me’: the Ballycastle Labour woman battling for Tory Kwasi Kwarteng’s old seat

---

After this weekend, two periods of hot and sunny weather are expected. The first is from Tuesday into next weekend. By the end of the week there will be temperatures of 25 degrees in many parts of the country.

There will be a brief breakdown next weekend before hot weather returns the following week with a high pressure area expected to bring a prolonged good spell of weather for the early weeks of August.

“There is a good signal of high pressure building in for the first week of August. It looks like it could be established over us for a while,” Met Éireann forecaster Paul Downes explained.

“It looks like quite a substantial high. It looks like high pressure is going to make a go of it again.

“It looks like good ridging in place with the jet stream well away towards our north-west.”