IT’S CLOSE TO a “done deal” for most on getting summer weather early next week, though the forecast is more uncertain from Wednesday onwards.

While light rain will greet many on Sunday morning, Met Éireann forecasts that this rain will give way to spells of sunshine later in the day, with highest temperatures of 18 to 22 degrees.

Liz Walsh, operational forecaster at Met Éireann, told The Journal that while there is still a degree of “uncertainty”, it looks like there’s a spell of settled weather developing later in the weekend and early next week.

“Come Sunday, it might be a rather cloudy start and it could be quite damp in some places with patchy rain and drizzle,” said Walsh.

“But then it looks like it’s going to brighten up through the afternoon, and temperatures should head into the low 20s.

“In to Monday, the high pressure becomes more dominant, so I’m expecting sunny spells through Monday, but then on Tuesday, things are a little bit more uncertain.”

In high pressure systems, winds tend to be light and blow in a clockwise direction, which reduces the formation of clouds and leads to settled weather conditions.

Walsh said the forecast for Sunday and into next week “looks high pressure dominant, which usually means dry, settled and – at this time – warm weather”.

She noted that the system is coming from the Azores in the North Atlantic Ocean – “so it’s coming from warmer climes and that means warmer weather”.

However, Walsh remarked that the “exact positions of this high pressure system is unclear”.

This means that there could be some “thicker cloud, as well as sporadic rain and drizzle, in the west and Northwest”.

While Walsh said it’s “not a done deal that it’s high pressure with wall-to-wall sunshine for everybody”, she did add that “Monday, and possibly Tuesday, are close to a done deal”.

“They’ll be summer days for many people with temperatures in the low 20s,” said Walsh.

And while it might not be “wall-to-wall sunshine” for all, Walsh remarked that “on the bright side, it’s the first time in a long time we’ve seen the signal for temperatures to head into the low 20s”.

She added that later in the week, “there’s quite a lot of uncertainty from Wednesday onwards”.

“What happens thereafter and how long the high pressure is going to stick around is uncertain at this stage,” said Walsh.

She explained that some models have low pressure becoming “a bit more dominant”, which would result in “thicker clouds moving into western, southwestern, and northwestern areas”.

Despite this, Wash said “temperatures look like they’re going to stay high”.

“If it ends up that a low pressure system moves in, then it won’t be 22 degrees,” said Walsh.

“But it won’t be cold either,” she added.

“It could be more cloudy at times, with rain and drizzle, and temperatures around 18 degrees as opposed to sunshine with 23 degrees.”

In low pressure systems, air rises and blows in an anticlockwise direction, which causes clouds to form and can lead to rain and often results in unsettled weather.

Meanwhile, Walsh noted that the “UK will probably do better out of this” and that “London has a better chance of getting drier weather with sunshine and high temperatures for longer”.

“So you will see that in the British press,” said Walsh, “but sometimes our weather can be more similar to Scotland as we are that bit further west.”