Hot and sunny: temperatures to climb towards 20 degrees by weekend

Consistency is not a word often associated with Irish weather but this week conditions will be just that – consistently hot and sunny, and increasingly so.

A large high pressure zone loitering stubbornly off the west coast means temperatures are set to climb high into next weekend, probably even breaking the 20 degree mark.

It should all mean the first real stretch of fine weather in what has been a bit of a wash out spring, and there is little sign of things changing in the foreseeable future.

“It is slow moving so the settled weather conditions just stay around us and the high pressure isn’t moving off all week really,” said Met Éireann meteorologist Mark Rowe.

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“It will be similar weather for the next few days basically, like what we’re experiencing today. It’s just going to get a little bit warmer toward the latter half of the week. High pressures, especially when they are slow moving, it makes forecasting the weather that little bit easier because the overall weather conditions are actually slow moving.”

That high pressure looks like being a reliable presence into at least Sunday, dangling the prospect of the year’s first prolonged stretch of summer.

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Monday will set the pace, a mix of clouds and sunny spells drawn out by longer daylight hours, reaching to highs of between 14 and 19. That will more or less describe Tuesday and Wednesday too, before the heat gets turned up a little further by Thursday.

“High pressure firmly in control for the coming week on latest charts,” posted Carlow Weather, the independent forecaster, on social media, displaying an array of tantalising graphics.

“That means settled and mainly dry weather with sunny spells. Temperatures getting up to 20c and possibly a little higher later in week.”