Latest Laois News: Weekend Weather Update for Laois

WEATHER TRENDS

Week 9 to 15 April

Forecast courtesy of Irish Weather Online

Temperatures will average 2 to 4 deg below normal. Rainfall will be around 25 to 50 per cent of normal, higher values in the north, and some portions of that wintry. Sunshine will average 75 per cent of normal, and wind speeds will be generally moderate in the 30-50 km/hr range but some calm nights will occur especially inland.

FORECAST FOR THIS WEEKEND & COMING WEEK

TODAY will see further outbreaks of light rain heading further south into Munster and south Leinster. A more wintry mixture of showers is feeding into Ulster and parts of north Connacht, north Leinster, and these will also make further progress south. A zone in between the front and the air mass showers will have the longest sunny intervals but these will fade away in the afternoon as cloud increases. Quite cold especially in the north where highs only 4 to 7 C, around 8 or 9 C in the south.

TONIGHT will see widespread partial clearing and some sharp frosts are expected in many areas of the south and central counties, lows -5 to -1 C. It will likely stay cloudier in the north with ongoing wintry showers and some accumulations of snow especially on hills in west Ulster. Lows there -2 to +1 C.

SATURDAY morning sunshine with the frost dissipating, then increasing cloud from north to south. Wintry showers will become rather widespread by mid-day in a moderate northerly flow (30-50 km/hr), highs only 3 to 7 C. Some accumulations of snow may develop further south during the afternoon. Once again skies will tend to clear up by evening and overnight there could be some more sharp frosts developing in the inland southeast in particular.

SUNDAY will then start out with the frosts and lows of -4 to +1 C, then variable amounts of cloud and only a few isolated showers, not as many of them wintry as temperatures will recover slightly to highs of 7 to 9 C.

NEXT WEEK will continue dry and rather cool for most of the time, a few weak disturbances will try to push in from the west but high pressure over Britain and central Europe will keep most of that rain either out to sea or confined to west and south coast counties if any does reach Ireland. Temperatures will continue a bit below average but it won’t be quite as cold as this coming weekend. Highs will be generally around 9 to 11 C each day and some nights will have slight frosts. This pattern seems fairly long-lived but could slowly change more towards normal mid to late April temperatures eventually.