Parts of the the northwest and North are to see less than 1 millimetre of rainfall over the next 7 to 9 days with the current dry spell set to continue into the end of next week.

Southern and eastern counties of Ireland will see rain in the form of showers on Thursday night and Friday with much needed rain coming as a relief for farmers and gardeners in the southern half of Ireland.

Rainfall amounts across Munster and south Leinster between Thursday night and midnight Sunday will range between 5mm to 15mm.

Across the rest of Leinster amounts of between 2mm to 5mm will be possible.

Parts of Connacht will only see between 1mm to 4mm with the highest amounts across South Connacht in Galway and even at that these amount are way below average.

Across Ulster there will be 0mm to 2mm with many areas seen little or no rainfall over the next week.

**Rainfall amounts over the next 8 days**

People are asked to be careful over the next week as the risk of forst and gorse fires will continue with a very high risk across the northern half of Ireland next week.

Another area of high pressure will build across Ireland next week bringing dry weather for all parts between Monday next week the 20th of April up until at least next Friday with further spells of sunshine and temperature into the low to mid teens but on some days getting that bit higher increasing into the high teens.

The outlook for the end of April is for drier than average weather with temperatures around average or just above. There are currently no signs of any massive increases in temperatures but the current pattern that is in place of we where to see this in the months of June or July temperatures would be in the high 20s or low 30s with thunderstorm activity.