The exams are over, but Leaving Cert weather to persist

IT’S always the way… the sun shines during the exams and goes in once they’re finally finished.

Such is the legend, the sunny weather of early June has even earned its own moniker, ‘leaving cert weather’.

But now exams are coming to an end, most will be wondering where the sun has gone as they hope for some warmer weather to kick off their long, lazy summer holidays.

And while we’re a long way off a heatwave yet, it does look like the next few days might bring us some warmer temperatures, with highs of 23 degrees forecast for today.

Met Éireann forecaster Aoife Kealy said it is definitely going to feel warmer than it did over the weekend for the first half of this week, particularly in the southeast, which will see the best of the sunshine. She said: ‘We will be seeing the temperatures getting up to the low 20s in some spots.

‘It will be a pleasant day overall – mostly dry with some nice sunshine around, even though it will get a bit hazy in the afternoon.

‘Then there will be a very weak front approaching from the northwest this evening and that will bring a little bit of patchy drizzle to the north-west coast.

‘Into Tuesday, that patchy rain will spread down across the country, so tomorrow will start off quite cloudy and damp in places but any of that rain and drizzle will die out as the day goes on and it will brighten up with some sunny spells developing,’ said Ms Kealy. ‘It will be another warm day, with highs of 16 to 21 degrees, and winds are going to be light so any sunshine is going to feel pretty warm. However, if it was a heatwave it would have to be above 25 degrees for five or more consecutive days – so even if it did get up to 23 it’s not near a heatwave!’

There will be more sunny spells on Wednesday and Thursday with the odd light shower but conditions will get more unsettled later in the week. Ms Kealy also warned that dry weather and warmer temperatures today and over the next few days will bring with it a very high pollen count.

It comes after a long spell of disappointingly dreary weather, particularly in light of the high temperatures seen in the UK and Europe over the past few days.

Ms Kealy said: ‘Our position on the edge of the Atlantic means we don’t always get the sunshine and high temperatures that other countries might.

‘While the high pressure was sitting over Europe last week we were getting a bit of low pressure affecting us from the north-west, which meant we didn’t get the chance for our temperatures to get up in the same way.’