Met Éireann has issued a status yellow weather warning for Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo and Clare, with strong winds of up to 65km/h and gusts of up 110km/h expected along the western seaboard.
The alert is in place until Friday at 9pm when the national forecaster will review if it will be necessary to extend it.
Today will be mainly dry with sunshine in eastern areas, but showers in the west will become widespread through the day, with some heavy downpours occurring in the west and northwest.
Met Éireann expect temperatures to range between 14 and 17 degrees.
Saturday will have a dry start with sunshine in the east of the country, but showers in the west will spread eastwards during the day with the north and the south of the country expected to remain dry. Temperatures are expected to remain mild between 17 and 19 degrees.
Latest reports indicate that Sunday will be mainly dry and bright throughout much of the day with temperatures hovering between 16 and 20 degrees.
Meanwhile, 2014 was found to be the warmest year on record with an increase in land and ocean temperatures and a rise in sea levels, according to a new study.
The ‘State of the Climate 2014’ said that Ireland is among 20 European countries which experienced its warmest year on record, with above-average temperatures reported across most of the countries studied.
The report found that it was also the wettest winter since records began in 1866 with rainfall nearly doubling in some parts.
The study from the American Metrological Society uses observations recorded by over 400 scientists across the world.
It notes that major greenhouse gas concentrations continued to rise during 2014. They reached 397.2 parts per million (ppm) for the year. This is in stark contrast with the global average pf 354 ppm when the report was first published in 1990.
“Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide - the major greenhouse gases released into Earth’s atmosphere - once again all reached record high average atmospheric concentrations for the year,” said the study.
Amid worldwide heat records, eastern North America was the only major region of the world to experience below-average annual temperatures.
“The 2014 report confirms yet again that we live in a world under-going rapid climate change,” said Maynooth University’s Professor Peter Thorne, one of the report’s editors.
“The numbers are in and there is no room for reasonable doubt that the climate system continues to warm with record high sea-levels, record ocean heat content and record warm sea surface temperatures.”