Following the weekend’s sunny spell and a rare glimpse of the Northern Lights on Friday evening, thunderstorm alerts have been issued for the east and north areas. Met Éireann has decreed a status yellow thunderstorm warning for Wicklow, Dublin, Meath, Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, and Donegal in conjunction with a similar alert from the UK Met Office for Northern Ireland’s six counties: Antrim, Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Down, and Armagh.
These thunderstorm advisories, effective from noon until 7 pm on Sunday in the Republic and extending to 7:30 p.m. in Northern Ireland, were combined with a yellow rain warning starting from Monday noon to Tuesday 6 am in Antrim, Derry, Tyrone, Armagh, and Down, issued by the UK Met Office.
Over the weekend, parts of the country basked in glorious sunshine, with Mount Dillon in Roscommon recording this year’s highest temperature at 23.6 degrees on Saturday, closely followed by 23.1 degrees at Finner Camp and Malin Head.
However, the fair weather is set to deteriorate from Sunday, with many areas predicting a cold and wet start to the week on both Monday and Tuesday. While unsettled weather persists in the latter half of the week, a warmer spell is expected on Thursday with temperatures climbing to 21 degrees.
Spectators had a unique chance to witness the Northern Lights or aurora borealis on Friday due to an earth-targeted coronal mass ejection (CME) that departed from the sun on Saturday, forecasted by the US based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It’s predicted that the CME will trigger severe to extreme geomagnetic storms when it contacts the Earth’s magnetic field on Sunday night into Monday morning.
The visibility of the Northern Lights in Ireland is contingent on factors such as cloud coverage and the southerly reach of the aurora borealis. On Saturday night, the lights were less apparent in Irish skies than on Friday due to prevailing weather conditions.