IRELAND IS BRACED for sunshine this week as the temperature is set to soar to up to 25 degrees.

Met Éireann has confirmed that the country is set for Mediterranean-like conditions nationwide from 16 July due to a weather phenomenon known as the Azores High. 

“This week, an Azores High is building up towards Ireland moving northwards from the west of Africa and Western Europe, and it’s bringing with it warm air, clear skies and light wind,” Mét Eireann’s Head of Forecasting Evelyn Cusack told The Journal.

But what exactly is an Azores High?

Named after the Azores Islands, located around 900 miles off the coast of Portugal, an Azores High is a large atmospheric high-pressure centre that builds up over the subtropical region. 

“Normally in Ireland, our weather comes in from the North Atlantic brought in by the Atlantic jet stream,” Cusack said. 

The jet stream is a channel of high-altitude winds that crosses the Atlantic from west to east, and brings with it the type of bad weather that we have been experiencing recently.  

“For the last few weeks, it has been a bit disappointing. There has been warm sunshine at times, but we’ve had bands of cloud and rain that have been breaking through from the Atlantic on the jet stream,” Cusack said. 

This is set to change later this week, when the Azores High moves towards Ireland. 

“High pressure is often called a ‘blocking high’ because it blocks out the Atlantic weather and keeps fine, dry, settled weather over the area it’s blocking. In this case, it looks like a blocking high is going to set up over Ireland,” Cusack added.