It’s a big seven days for Met Éireann...

ITS forecasters are used to predicting changeable conditions in our weather – and now Met Éireann has announced a big change in the way it provides forecasts to the public.

Our national meteorological service traditionally did not made predictions beyond a few days, but now it will give forecasts for seven days as part of a new website and app.

However, the development got a frosty reception from the public yesterday when online ‘teething issues’ dogged its launch.

Brian Delaney, a senior meteorological officer, said: ‘The launch of the website and the apps has produced a greater demand on our hosting service, but [problems] should be resolved quite quickly.’

During the peak of Storm Ophelia in October and then Storm Emma last month, the Met Éireann website got 412,000 and 328,000 daily visitors respectively.

Mr Delaney said the new website and app have been designed to handle larger visitor numbers than the previous ones.

At the launch yesterday, Minister Eoghan Murphy said the public ‘will be able to view seven-day forecasts, including predicted rainfall and temperature, for your own local area along with the latest weather observations including live rainfall radar images.

‘Vitally, you will also be able to see the latest weather warnings for your county,’ he added.

Yesterday’s seven-day forecast revealed we will be blessed with a welcome improvement in the weather for the time being.

Today is expected to start out cloudy and misty before the sun starts to break through, with temperatures of up to 19C.