Long Range Weather Forecast For Ireland (28 February 2021)

 


West Cork in the sunshine this morning. Photo by Mary McCarthy

 TRENDS for the week of 28 Feb to 6 Mar 2021 --

-- Temperatures will average near or slightly below normal values.
-- Rainfalls will amount to 10 to 20 per cent of normal.
-- Sunshine will be near average although rather variable from region to region.


FORECASTS

TODAY will be partly cloudy to sunny, and with light winds it should feel relatively mild despite only average late February temperatures around 10 C.

TONIGHT will see more clear skies in some places leading to local frosts and fog patches, lows -2 to +3 C.

MONDAY will bring a mixture of cloud and sunshine, still rather calm, with highs 9 to 12 C.

TUESDAY will become partly cloudy to overcast, with lows 2-4 C and highs 10-12 C.

WEDNESDAY may have a few light showers in a weak frontal passage as slightly colder air pushes in from the north to replace what's left of our current high pressure area. Lows near 4 C and highs 8 to 11 C.

THURSDAY and FRIDAY will feel a bit of the chill from the new high having pushed down into Britain from around Iceland -- the dynamics are weak so this may sound worse than it will actually play out, just a slight drop in temperatures for Ireland and even over in Scotland more directly affected it will stay above freezing. In Ireland highs will be 7 to 10 C and slight frosts will be more widespread than earlier in the week.

This colder weather pattern will begin to become a bit more unsettled over the weekend of 6-7 March although rainfall amounts are expected to be slight, with little change in temperatures. Later on, the second week of March looks fairly unsettled and with the colder air still hanging around, these Atlantic lows are going to find it difficult to raise temperatures much past 7 or 8 C even in coastal areas, so that there could be some sleety mixtures at times on higher ground inland. 

 

Peter O'Donnell for IWO