The glorious weather of recent days is set to subside from tomorrow with warnings of spot flooding in some parts of the country.
Temperatures are expected to soar as high as 26 degrees today with midlands and western counties set to enjoy the best of the seasonal sunshine.
It will be a warm and muggy night with temperatures remaining in the mid to high teens in most parts, with a risk of thundery showers across the south.
Wednesday is set to herald a change in conditions for much of the country, however, with cloud and showery rain replacing the blue skies, although the mercury will still top 20 degrees in the east and midlands in particular.
Met Éireann is forecasting thundery downpours, which may lead to spot flooding on Wednesday, with inclement conditions pushing up from the south across the rest of the country over the course of the day.
Ominous outlook
This change will mark the beginning of the end of the fleeting summer sunshine of mid-July, and Met Éireann provides the ominous outlook that “the next few days will be dominated by a low-pressure system resulting in breezy conditions with showery rain and slightly cooler than in recent days”.
There will at least be some relief from the oppressive night-time humidity, with values set to drop to single digits from the latter part of Wednesday evening, and Thursday will see “scattered showers merging into longer spells of rain in the west and north” as the day progresses.
The forecaster adds: “Showery rain will continue during Thursday night, which may merge into longer spells of rain and turn heavy and persistent for a time.”
Highs of 14-18 degrees will become the norm, as is roughly typical for this time of year but well below the peak temperatures witnessed at the start of this week.
Early predictions for next weekend point to a mixture of scattered showers with some sunny spells.