Met Éireann calls the UK Met Office’s summer heatwave forecast ‘nonsense’

"You can only predict the weather five days in advance."

The UK Met Office got us very excited with a recent prediction that we're in for a three-month heatwave - but don't get your hopes up. The British forecaster said that higher-than-average temperatures could be expected from May to July in the UK thanks to warm air coming from Spain. Now our own national forecaster has warned that this isn't as likely as you'd think. "What the Met Office is looking at is seasonable trends based on observations of the stratosphere," Met Éireann's Joanna Donnelly told the Irish Independent. "It's looking at probabilities of what could happen, but you can't say the second of June will be a fine and sunny day - that's nonsense. "We have the same climate every year. Our summers are 20C at times with prevailing south-westerly winds. "You can only predict the weather five days in advance, but that depends on what the situation is at that time of the forecast." Not what we wanted to hear, honestly. As for the immediate future? The next few days are looking mixed though we could be treated to a sunny long weekend. We can expect rain and light to moderate winds this evening followed by a wet start to Tuesday, according to Met Éireann. The rain will clear off mostly in the west but is expected to stay heavy in the east into the afternoon. Wednesday will be generally bright and dry, the forecaster says, but will become more showery as the day goes on. Thursday is predicted to be showery too. From Friday going into the weekend we can expect lots of dry and bright weather, though it'll be cool enough with day time highs of 14 degrees.