It’s official: the hot sunshine and blue skies are over

After the past few weeks basking, Mediterranean-style, in hot sunshine and blue skies, Ireland donned its traditional “green and misty” cloak yesterday.

The day remained sultry, however, with brief spells of hazy sunshine giving top temperatures of 22ºC.

Overall, there was a good deal of cloud, with occasional heavy showers of rain affecting many parts of the country.

After some scattered showers last night bringing temperatures overnight to single figures, the week will begin with fresher conditions than the country has experienced for several weeks past.

Today will be breezy, with sunny spells and widespread showers heavy in the west and north. Top temperatures will not go above 20ºC.

"Certainly, it's the end of the extended dry spell we've had," reported Met Éireann forecaster Sarah O'Reilly. "The week ahead doesn't look that bad but it probably won't be as great as the last two weeks we've had."

Today, we could have showers that strike anywhere. But there should also be pleasant spells between showers.

"If we didn't have great weather for the past two weeks we might not be saying it's a bad week coming," said Ms O'Reilly.

"Temperatures in the coming week will be in the high teens, maybe just barely reaching 20ºC, whereas they've been in the low 20s last week and previous to that they were in the high 20s," she added.

Tomorrow and Wednesday look like being nice weather days, with a few showers today and a much lower risk of rain tomorrow. A few fronts off the west coast may give rise to poorer weather towards the weekend. However, some eastern parts of the country may avoid getting the rain during the week.

Meanwhile, in France, people are bracing themselves for another assault from the weather. Just two days after seeing off a heatwave that killed up to 3,000 people, theremeteorologists were warning of storms, hail and violent winds.

Meteo-France, the state weather forecasting agency, issued its second-highest alert across the south and east of the country, warning of gusts of up to 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour, heavy rain and lightning up to late Monday.

Motorists in those areas, and in Paris, were also warned that the winds could make driving dangerous.

Residents in the affected areas were told to avoid walking in forests or on mountains, to secure items that might be swept away by the wind and to avoid using the telephone or other electronic gear.