Hope of sizzling summer after UK Met’s forecast

Ireland may be in for a scorcher this summer, if the British send a little sunshine our way.

Mon, 01 Jun, 2015 - 01:00

Conall Ó Fátharta and Alistair Grant

According to the UK Met Office, which released its three-month forecast for June to August, Britain will enjoy hotter than normal temperatures with below average rainfall.

Met Éireann, however, only forecasts a week ahead but, given that our weather closely matches our neighbours, the hope is a bit of the sunshine will come our way.

The UK Met Office said a much hotter than normal summer is twice as likely as much colder than usual — at 20% versus 10%

A much hotter than normal summer is classified as a UK average summer temperature over 15.05C. A temperature over 2013’s 15.17C would make it the hottest summer since 2006 in the UK.

Typically, next week here in Ireland looks set to start off badly, with Monday and Tuesday looking like they will be wet and windy. However, Met Éireann is predicting a better end to the week than we got this weekend.

“Wednesday will be mild and dry apart from patchy drizzle as a weak warm front moves up over Ireland introducing a milder air mass with temperatures of 14 to 17 degrees in moderate southwesterly breezes. Thursday will be mainly dry with sunny spells and quite mild with highs of 16 to 19 degrees,” said the forecaster.

Irish Weather Online forecaster Peter O’Donnell is a bit more optimistic.

“Improvements should follow rapidly for next week with highs up to 21C,” he said.