Sunny, warm weather forecast this week as heatwave set to hit southern Europe

Mainly dry, warm weather is being forecast for the week ahead by Met Éireann as a heat dome developing over continental Europe is set to bring unusually high temperatures there for this time of year.

Monday is to see some sunshine in most of the country, though there may be scattered rain and showers in the southeast coast and the northwest. Highest temperatures of 12-15 degrees are expected.

Similar temperatures, with sunny spells and some outbreaks of rain, are being forecast for Tuesday through to Thursday, when a southerly wind may bring even warmer conditions on Friday and over the weekend.

In continental Europe the temperature could reach 35 degrees, and even higher, in Spain, Portugal and southern France, and the mid-20s in Germany and central Europe, as high pressure atmospheric conditions look set to remain stationary over the continent, trapping hot air and making for unusually high temperatures for autumn. Temperatures in the south of England are expected to be in the mid-20s.

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Documents from Met Éireann released on foot of a freedom of information request show that meteorological colleagues in the Netherlands were at first uncertain about an Irish proposal that the next storm but one to hit this part of the world should be called Storm Ciarán, saying they were not sure how the word was pronounced.

Following discussions, Ciarán did ultimately make the cut and will be the name given to the third storm of the year, after Babet, the name that will be given to the next storm, and Agnes, which caused significant damage around Ireland last week.

Storms that could have a medium to high impact in Ireland, the UK or the Netherlands are given names as part of a process agreed some time ago by the Met services in the three jurisdictions, in order to facilitate communications with the public. Starting with the letter A, the services agree a series of names for each storm season, but leave out names starting with the letters q, u, x, y and z.

The names announced last month for the current season are Agnes, Babet, Ciarán, Debi, Elin, Fergus, Gerrit, Henk, Isha, Jocelyn, Kathleen, Lilian, Minnie, Nicholas, Olga, Piet, Regina, Stuart, Tamiko, Vincent and Walid.

[ Weather extremes: What’s causing the heatwave in Ireland, deadly floods in Europe? ]

Walid was nominated by the Dutch service, which had initially wanted to use Wolfgang, the released emails show. “The list is diverse enough but all [our] names are very old fashioned Dutch, so we would love to add an Arabic name,” the service said, leading to a late change and the inclusion of Walid.