THE RUN OF hot weather isn’t going anywhere just yet, according to Met Éireann, with high temperatures persisting over the weekend and into next week.

Today is set to be dry with sunshine and highest temperatures of 17 to 24 degrees Celsius.

The warmest weather will be across the midlands, west and southwest, Met Éireann says.

Tonight will be mostly dry and clear apart from some isolated mist patches, with lowest temperatures of four to nine degrees.

Tomorrow is expected to follow with another dry and sunny day, with highs of 17 degrees towards the east of the country and up to 24 or 25 degrees in the west.

Sunday should also be mostly dry with good spells of sunshine and highest temperatures of 17 to 24 or 25 degrees.

Starting off next week, Met Éireann expects Monday to be mostly dry with good sunny spells but a chance of some showers developing.

Highest temperatures on Monday should be around 16 to 23 degrees.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the current indications guiding the forecast suggest that the weather will be largely dry with good sunny spells, though a few showers are possible, and temperatures will reach the mid-teens to low twenties.

According to Eoin Sherlock, head of forecasting at Met Éireann, Ireland is experiencing a weather pattern known as an ‘Omega blocking high’.

Named for its similarity in shape to the Greek letter Omega, it is a weather pattern in which a high-pressure system gets trapped between two low-pressure systems. Weather in the high-pressure middle is typically characterised by warm and dry conditions.

“The high pressure is being kept over Ireland,” Sherlock said, speaking to The Journal earlier this week.

April brought some record temperatures for the time of year, including in Athenry, Co Galway with a 40-year high of 25.9 degrees, surpassing the previous record of 25.8 set in the Glenties in Co Donegal on 26 April 1984.

Globally, the average surface air temperature last month was almost the hottest of any April of modern records, prompting concerns about the impacts of climate change.

The average global surface air temperature last month was 14.96 degrees Celsius, coming second only to April 2024.

In Europe, the average temperature was 9.38 degrees Celsius, which is 1.01 degrees above the 1991-2020 average for April, making it the sixth-warmest April for Europe.

The global average sea surface temperature between the latitudes of 60°S–60°N was 20.89 degrees Celsius, the second-highest value on record for the month — 0.15 of a degree below the April 2024 record.

Sea surface temperatures “remained unusually high” in many ocean basins and seas, including large areas of the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

Arctic sea ice extent was 3% below average, the sixth lowest monthly extent for April in the 47-year satellite record, and Antarctic sea ice extent was 10% below average, making it the 10th lowest on record for the month.