Summer 2021 General Discussion

Today started very warm in Dunshaughlin. Highest temperatures were between 11am and 2pm with a max of 26C. The sea breeze kicked in and temperatures have been sliding away ever since, currently 21C. This time yesterday it was still 27C. Tomorrow could be a degree or two cooler than today generally so low to mid twenties through much of Leinster and Ulster and parts of Connaught. Highest temperatures tomorrow will be in the southern third of the country with mid to high twenties there.

The heat will really build again from Tuesday with Wednesday and Thursday looking very warm to hot nationwide with 30C or slightly higher in a quite a few places.

The breakdown from Friday is starting to look like a bit of a bust at this stage. It will become cooler over the weekend with temperatures generally low to mid twenties but there are already signs that we could be back into the mid to high twenties by the following week. We may have to wait till August before we see temperatures back in the high teens but that's long way off. This hot spell is still writing it's own story and at the moments the heat just keeps getting prolonged day by day.

To break the Irish all time heat record would require something extra special. I think this spell has taken everyone by surprise just how warm it and prolonged it has become because none of this heat is coming from the continent, it's coming from the Atlantic due to the Azores high. The longer it sits around the more the heat builds but Ireland definitely has it's temperature level ceiling due to poor heat related geography.

At the moment the real high uppers are being kept at bay over the med due to the low pressures that have dominated much of France and Germany/Central Europe in recent weeks.

The only way I could see 33C or higher here is if we continue on the current path of hot weather until Friday and then a warm period of instability over the weekend followed by a reload of heat next week. The azores sitting over us next week wouldn't be enough, after 10 days of very warm to hot conditions we would need extra support in the form of a very intense heat plume up from Spain or Africa with +18 to +20 uppers. If that happened and Ireland got a direct hit after 10 days of hot weather then I could see 33.0C or higher being reached, but one can only dream.